Doctors and Psychologists in the 19th century believed that the .
Placebo Effect is shown to be twice as powerful as they expected. They .
gave different people with different diseases or illnesses a placebo with the .
belief that it will cure them or show great improvements in their health. The .
result was that two thirds or the patients given this inactive treatment .
improved, but only temporarily, and tests found the treatments to be .
medically useless. An old rule of thumb is that only 1 third of the people .
will show signs of improvements but new studies reveal that the effect is to .
be twice as powerful as was thought. One psychologist by the name of Dr. .
Frederick Evans said ,"I argue that instead of just trying to control for .
placebo, we should try to maximize it." A placebo has a broader meaning .
then what most people think, The "Placebo Effect" includes any .
improvements in a patient not specifically due to a particular due to a .
particular ingredient in a treatment.
The final conclusion of the placebo effect was shown that the results .
of improvement in health just disappeared. This was probably due to some .
confounding variables. The tests given was used for a control group and that .
group showed over 66 % of health improvements. Outside the control group .
others showed little improvement. The variables could have been size, .
weight, their health at that time, or different diseases. My argument is that .
peoples bodies react differently to one treatment rather then another person .
with the same treatment. They should do tests of all ages, gender with a .
great amount of people to come to a conclusion about the Placebo Effect.
The problem with the research in my mind is that they do all these .
tests against the placebo and active medication but they can still tell who is .
getting what, whose getting the placebo and whose getting the active .
medication. That's where they went wrong in my opinion.
