Placebo Effect

A detailed Summary of Placebo Effect

Medicines that are prescribed to patients can commonly have several effects. Some of the depend directly on medicine's pharmacological action; others may have a psychological effect that readily "cures" or relieves the symptoms troubling the patient, though they may not have any actual pharmacological action. This is known as the "placebo effect." The word "placebo" comes from the Latin verb "placere" which means, "to please" Or, "placebo is any treatment devoid of any specific actions on the patient's symptoms or diseases that somehow can cause an effect upon the patient." The placebo effect is a much-debated phenomenon in medicine. This paper will consist of three topics of discussion. First, what are the two categories of illness to be considered when discussing the placebo effect? Second, what does Pavlov's Theory have to do with the placebo effect and how it relates to stress-induced illnesses. Third, how does the placebo effect relate to the patient/doctor relationship? Does the placebo effect have the same validity when measured against serious illnesses that typically respond to chemical treatments (such as cancer, Aids, and other bacterial or cellular diseases) as when measured against stress-induced illnesses or symptoms

One theory comes from Pavlov's experiment on conditioned reflexes. In this experiment, Pavlov rang a bell before giving food to a dog. After a couple of trials, no food was given after the bell rang, but the dog still salivated and expected the food. "This reflex was an involuntary bodily response to an outside stimulus." Similarly, many people have experienced relief after visiting a physician or taking a medication. Therefore, the patient would be conditioned to respond positively to any visit to a physician's office or any medication administered to them, even if that medication is merely a placebo. If the physician tells the patient that the medication is a drug that will help the patient's condition, and the patient has been previously conditioned as mentioned above, the patient's body will respond positively in about 50-60% of all cases. The number of cases, in which the placebo causes positive, healing effects sometimes exceeds the number of cases in which the drug actually works! This clearly shows that the placebo effect does actually work, for stress-induced illnesses.

such as asthma, migraine headaches, or blood-pressure/heart conditions?

Another theory behind the placebo effect has to do with the placebo effect of the positive doctor-patient relationship, which reduces the stress level in the patient. Many mild illnesses a

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Approximate Word count = 909
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science