The Placebo Effect refers to the beneficial effect in a patient following a particular treatment that arises from the patient's expectations concerning the treatment rather than from the treatment itself
or put another way
The placebo effect happens when you decide a therapy will make you better and because you believe you will improve you do, your belief makes it happen.
Placebos have been shown to work in about 30 percent of patients, and they've been used by doctors for ages. In fact, in earlier times they were often the only thing that a doctor could offer to relieve suffering.
Some researchers believe that placebos work through a psychological response, taking them makes you feel better. More recently researchers have been saying that placebos actually work on a physical level. Because we believe they will work we find they do, our belief causes a chemical change (eg such as raising dopamine levels) .
If this is true then what part does the placebo effect play in our treatment, whatever approach we use?
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Hikoi
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Research Demonstrates theHealing Power of the Mind
May 11 2009 by Lind Anderson
According to Fabrizio Benedetti, Professor at the University of Turin Medical School in Ital , saline has been shown to control pain that was previously controlled by rnorp ine. Only the patients believed they were still receiving morphine. In fact, it
was unknowingly replaced with saline, yet their pain was still controlled in the
same way.
When the patients received an agent, naloxone, that blocked the pain-killing effect of morphine while they were only receiving saline, their pain relief disap eared.
He's Iso demonstrated the placebo phenomenon at work on Parkinson's patients who r ceived saline treatments instead of their usual Parkinson's medication. Thelr
trem rs and muscle stiffness were reduced on the saline placebo, and the saline recipi nts' brain neurons were seen in brain scans to react the same as with requl rly prescribed medication.
Profe sor Benedetti, considered a leading authority on the placebo phenomenon, expla ns these nl~sponses as examples of how the mind can control the body's bioch mistry, and demonstrates the ~ower of expectation of healinq or I~eliefand its su sequent therapeutic result. They're also good examples of how mental
activi y can affect different physiological functions, and can serve as the basis for learni g more in-depth about the mind-body connection.
As an example of the power of expectation, during a clinical trial comparing the use 0 real acupuncture versus sham acupuncture, those recipients who believed
they eceived the real acupuncture treatment were more likely to recover,
regar less of which type they actually received. The experiment showed that what really mattered was whether they believed in the effectiveness of the treatment and i they thouqht they would benefit by it.
In 30% of all cases of diseases They could cut drug bills by giving Placebo's?
I think it is particularly sstrong in pd. i deveoped most symptoms after i learnt what ones went with Parkinsons. When im really determined, i can do things but when im feeling tired and negative i cannot. If people treat me as disabled i play the part v ery psychological.. Affirmations help a lot.
Hi hilarypeta. When you use your conscious brain, as against your subconscious, you actually use a different part of your brain. Your conscious movements don't appear to be affects by Pd, whereas the subconscious ones do. Walking, writing, bringing food to our mouth, cleaning our teeth, knitting and a myriad other learned skills are controlled by the subconscious brain. You are able to move any limb or digit and do whatever you want to with it, because you consciously do it. When you walk, you tell yourself to walk and it happens. You don't have to think about how to do it, you just do it. But with Pd, you have problems with many subconsciously controlled movements.
This is my second try for. Getting it right this morning. I lost the first out to the land of
Hit the wrong button! And zap it was gone so will. Be brief this time. I have started
To stumble with stairs and must
Have support for more than one or two at most. Do you think this Is PD that can be consciously controlled.. ? This is so new to me and it is making me an emotional
Wreck.any response is welcome from you or ANY out there. With step and balance problems. Help,needed.
When anybody tells me that my thoughts can make a difference, I wonder what effect that has on those who are suffering in one way or another. I would hate to add 'failure to control symptoms' to the list of things that seem out of our control with all the negative emotional baggage that comes with that.
If it was as easy as that we wouldn't need a cure, just somebody to help us to 'pull ourselves together.'
agree, we must be very careful of how we deal with this research, lest we get labelled as having caused or failing to deal effectively with PD. I say there isn't enough understanding of this.
On the other hand I (though I'm a caregiver and not a PD patient) have used guided meditation on myself for General Wellness and things like Healthful Sleep and after listening to them for a while, I trust the voice and relax into the message and images. It really helps and has some research backing up it's minimal claims. I helps me deal with the 'self talk' which for me is often negative, replacing it with calm and steadiness. healthjourneys.com is what I used but there are a lot of companies. Affirmations work well in combination with this. After a while, I have them memorized and I'll say them to myself when I'm stressed.
I completely agree that there are things such as meditation etc which help people arm themselves against the consequences of their condition but this is subtly different from the placebo effect.
Soup i think you are referring to the difference between positive thinking, or self help techniques ( both very important) and the placebo effect?
This article might explain better than the original post
The Placebo Effect, How it Complicates Parkinson’s Disease Research
To find out if a potential new treatment for Parkinson’s disease is effective, it is necessary to test it in people, through clinical trials.
In clinical trials, researchers usually use a methodology known as the “double blind” trial. In this type of a trial, the experience of a group of participants who are taking the treatment is compared with that of a group of participants who are taking an inactive substance called a “placebo” — typically, a simple sugar pill. Participants go into the trial knowing that they will receive either the active treatment or a placebo. But neither the participants nor the researchers know who is taking the real treatment and who is taking the placebo.
Theoretically, those participants who receive the placebo will not see any change in their Parkinson’s symptoms. But in nearly every Parkinson’s clinical trial, some people who take the placebo report that it eases their symptoms. We call this the placebo effect. And that means that the new treatment being tested has to be not just better than before enrollment in the study, but also better than the placebo in order for its effects to be considered significant.
What an excellent article Hikoi. I must use this when I am talking to people about how participating in trials has helped my husband feel he is fighting back. Perhaps he was 'placeboed'.
I know that hitting the wrong button trick! Drives me crazy!
Yes! I go to a PD movement class taught by Pamela Quinn, a professional dancer with PD> We use these techniques. In our last class, we actually ran! We learn fall prevention techniques, techniques for walking when you're off, etc. I take other awesome classes too but hers are available via YouTube. Please check out!!!
Hi Pollyanna007. Pd causes a problem with the control of movement. Muscle weakness causes most of the other problems. Walking up stairs or in a straight line needs both control and strength. The control can be learned by taking over that control from the subconscious brain by using your conscious brain. Instead of trying to will your legs to move you can consciously move them. learning how to do that is not so easy to begin with, but once you have got the hang of it, you will improve all the time. Exercise starts, as they say, with the first step. Start walking as far and as fast as you can. If it is only for ten steps, it is a start. Keep trying. don't stop trying! Nobody can do it for you! The ideal exercise is walking and the ideal time is one hour, three times a week, with one day for resting in between each walk. If you are too unsteady to walk unaided, then get a friend or partner to hold one arm, so that you don't fall. See how far you can walk, before you are too tired to carry on. Each time you walk, see how far you get. You will find that each week, you are walking a little bit further and you are feeling a little bit stronger. If you have not walked hard for a long time then don't try to do too much to start off.
At the WPC in Montreal the intelligent design of drug trials was uppermost in the thought of people looking at new therapies as well as the old therapies used in a new way. The best trials are adaptive in style and don't rely on hundreds of people going all the way through the procedure only to find out that the results show nothing. Instead, the participants are carefully sub grouped and any procedure which proves to be adverse or not useful can be modified or stopped so that the trial can focus in of the effective ones.
The placebo effect has been recognised for many years and forms the baseline against which therapies are judged. Unfortunately many alternative therapies are not investigated in that way, perhaps because there is not the money behind a trial that drugs might have. It doesn't mean that those alternative therapies are not helping but it does mean that how much it helps above the placebo effect is not known.
The mind is a powerful mass of energy. I believe in the placebo theory. When I have challenges with PD, I always change my state of mind to where I am either challenging my body with exercise or something that will calm me down, shower, cocktail, vitamins. My favorite is praying and thanking GOD for my healing by saying "Thank you LORD for my healing, every day in every way I am getting better and better". "Thank you LORD for giving me the power to heal myself".
The placebo effect is our friend. Here's how I think we could make the best use of it.
Define the word "therebo" to mean something that may have true therapeutic effect or alternatively may be a placebo. For example, I think both exercise and curcumin are thereboes for PD.
Start a trial by measuring everyone and continue measuring them throughout the trial.
Present all participants with a menu of thereboes. They can each choose one. At the end of a week, say, they are measured. And all the results are published to all participants.
On the basis of the results, each week the participants can change their choice.
From time to time new thereboes could be added to the menu. Thus, the trial could continue indefinitely.
What would happen?
Each person would choose the therebo they thought had the best chance of success for them. This would be based both on theory and the results from others. Regardless of whether a choice has true therapeutic effect the fact that it was a person's choice would give it a head start.
Randomness would mean that some people would have a good week and some a bad one, most likely they will assume this is due to the therebo.
People would move away from poor scoring thereboes to high scoring ones, enhancing their placebo value. And so one ...
One final point, suppose I did well on a therebo, while others didn't. This would certainly dent my confidence. But, as long as I continued to do well on it, I think I would rationalize that I was in a sub-group and would stick with it. So, this type of trial works on a personal level as well.
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