Author: David Peters
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780443060311
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Get Book Here
Book Description
As the placebo effect continues to elicit passionate debate, this book tackles issues of the placebo effect in complementary medicine, and is targeted to both the experienced practitioner and the new student.
Author: Dylan Evans
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195220544
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Get Book Here
Book Description
Can we really cure ourselves of disease by the power of thought alone? Faith healers and alternative therapists are convinced that we can, but what does science say? Contrary to public perception, orthodox medical opinion is remarkably confident about the healing powers of the mind. For the past fifty years, doctors have been taught that placebos such as sugar pills and water injections can relieve virtually any kind of medical condition. Yet placebos only work if you believe they work, so the medical confidence in the power of the placebo effect has provided scientific legitimacy to popular claims about the healing power of the mind. In this intriguing exploration, Dylan Evans exposes the flaws in the scientific research into the placebo effect and reveals the limits of what can and cannot be cured by thought alone. Drawing on new ideas in immunology and evolutionary biology, Evans proposes a new theory about how placebos work, and asks some searching questions about our concepts of health and disease
Author: Fabrizio Benedetti
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191724022
Category : Placebo (Medicine)
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Get Book Here
Book Description
This is the first book to critically review the mechanisms of placebo effects across all medical conditions, diseases and therapies. It is the definitive text on the placebo effect, and will be essential for researchers and clinicians in all medical specialties.
Author: John S. Haller, Jr.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231537700
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Get Book Here
Book Description
Can Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) find common ground? A distinguished historian of medicine, John S. Haller Jr., explores the epistemological foundations of EBM and the challenges these conceptual tools present for both conventional and alternative therapies. As he explores a possible reconciliation between their conflicting approaches, Haller maintains a healthy, scientific skepticism yet finds promise in select complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies. Haller elucidates recent research on the placebo effect and shows how a new engagement between EBM and CAM might lead to a more productive medical practice that includes both the objectivity of evidence-based medicine and the subjective truth of the physician-patient relationship. Haller's book tours key topics in the standoff between EBM and CAM: how and why the double blinded, randomized clinical trial (RCT) came to be considered the gold standard in modern medicine; the challenge of postmodern medicine as it counters the positivism of evidence-based medicine; and the politics of modern CAM and the rise of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He conducts an in-depth case study of homeopathy, explaining why it has emerged as a poster-child for CAM, and assesses CAM's popularity despite its poor performance in clinical trials. Haller concludes with hope, showing how new experimental protocols might tease out the evidentiary basis for the placebo effect and establish a foundation for some reconciliation between EBM and CAM.
Author: David A. Jopling
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199239509
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Get Book Here
Book Description
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have had to defend themselves from a barrage of criticisms throughout their history. In this book David Jopling argues that the changes achieved through therapy are really just functions of placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers. It is a bold new work that delivers yet another blow to Freud and his followers.
Author: Dean T. Jamison
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821361805
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1449
Get Book Here
Book Description
Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.
Author: Harald Walach
Publisher: Elsevier Inc. Chapters
ISBN: 0128064269
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 38
Get Book Here
Book Description
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is frequently conceptualized as ‘nothing but’ placebo. I will argue, and provide the evidence in this chapter, that, apart from potential specific effects, CAM is a clever way of inducing generic self-healing effects. Jerome D Frank's model serves to conceptualize this. CAM practitioners normally establish good relationships and take time to listen to their patients. They have very elaborate rituals to enact those effects. They demonstrate their prowess and they provide alternative explanatory models that make sense, at least to those patients that consult with them. Most important of all, perhaps, is the fact that nearly all CAM modalities require patients to become active, thus serving as a catalyst to mobilize resources and stimulate the experience of self-efficacy. The latter is debatedly one of the most important nonspecific effects of therapy. Hence, it is misleading to conceptualize CAM effects as nonspecific effects. Rather, it seems to be a way of activating a self-healing response that is very specific in itself, and indeed, more specific than purportedly specific pharmacologic effects.
Author: Arthur K. Shapiro
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801866753
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Get Book Here
Book Description
"The Powerful Placebo" discusses the placebo effect over the centuries, reminding the reader how complex the issue is, from the very definition of a placebo and the success of dubious or fraudulent remedies to the modern worship of placebos as controls in clinical trials. The authors assert that "until recently, the history of medical treatment was essentially the history of placebo effect".
Author: Franklin G. Miller
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142140866X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Get Book Here
Book Description
A thorough collection of classic and contemporary resources about the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a fascinating but elusive phenomena. Although no standard definition of the placebo effect exists, it is generally understood as consisting of responses of individuals to the psychosocial context of medical treatments or clinical encounters, as distinct from specific physiological effects of medical interventions. The Placebo is the first book to compile a selection of classic and contemporary published articles on the topic. Systematic investigation of the placebo effect emerged in the 1950s in response to the development of randomized controlled clinical trials that used “inert” placebo interventions as a pivotal element of scientific evaluation of novel drugs. In recent years, scientific and scholarly investigation of the placebo effect has increased dramatically, reflecting a growing interest in the connection between mind and body with respect to health, the development of brain imaging techniques, dissatisfaction with the reductionist and technological orientation of biomedicine, and growing attention to the use of complementary and alternative medical treatments. The Placebo is organized into three sections: the nature and significance of the placebo effect, experimental studies of the placebo effect, and ethical issues of placebos in research and in clinical practice. This comprehensive sourcebook will be invaluable to investigators and scholars alike.
Author: Melanie Warner
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501121502
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Get Book Here
Book Description
The acclaimed author of Pandora’s Lunchbox and former New York Times reporter delivers an “entertaining and highly useful book that gives you the tools to understand how alternative medicine works, so you can confidently make up your own mind” (The Washington Post). We all know someone who has had a seemingly miraculous cure from an alternative form of medicine: a friend whose chronic back pain vanished after sessions with an acupuncturist or chiropractor; a relative with digestive issues who recovered with herbal remedies; a colleague whose autoimmune disorder went into sudden inexplicable remission thanks to an energy healer or healing retreat. The tales are far too common to be complete fabrications, yet too anecdotal and outside the medical mainstream to be taken seriously scientifically. How do we explain them and the growing popularity of alternative medicine more generally? In The Magic Feather Effect, author and journalist Melanie Warner takes us on a vivid, important journey through the world of alternative medicine. Visiting prestigious research clinics and ordinary people’s homes, she investigates the scientific underpinning for the purportedly magical results of these practices and reveals not only the medical power of beliefs and placebo effects, but also the range, limits, and uses of the surprising system of self-healing that resides inside us. Equal parts helpful, illuminating, and compelling, The Magic Feather Effect is a “well-written survey of alternative medicine…fair-minded, thorough, and focused on verifiable scientific research” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Warner’s enlightening, engaging deep dive into the world of alternative medicine and the surprising science that explains why it may work is an essential read.
