The General Issues Of Prescribing Medication Essay

Imagine going to the doctor and being given medication to heal your pain. Now how would you feel if after taking the medication and feeling better you came to find out you were given a placebo? This may sound upsetting to some, however, “ a recent survey of U.S. internists and rheumatologists found that some 50% regular prescribe placebos.” A placebo is defined as a false treatment without any significant chemical properties or active ingredient. The use of placebos as a primary form of treatment with any pathology is not happening anytime soon, but their positive impact and usefulness in the medical field is becoming hard to deny. In the article, “The Magic of the Placebo”, author David Bjerklie attempts to explain the growing change in

The placebo (pla-see-bow) effect is the act of making things appear like they work like they're said to. Researchers use the placebo effect when testing out new medications and their effectiveness by telling everyone they're getting the same medicine, and giving a certain amount of people a fake treatment to test and others getting the real deal, neither parties knowing a difference. The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation (P.54 OpenStax). Some people's mind will make them believe that the fake treatment is working for them, when in actuality it is not. Before the experiment, the control group should tell everyone the medicine they're all said to be getting

Drug marketing can lead to false diagnosis and the medication has potential to harm to the patient.

A placebo is a treatment similar in appearance to an “actual” medical treatment but without any beneficial medical ingredient. It is used in clinical trials to gauge how effective a new treatment is, with the effects being subtracted from the effect of taking the placebo. This is because of a phenomenon known as ‘the placebo effect’. Often simply the severe trust put into doctors in the present day coupled with the physical action of taking medicine is enough to make someone feel better. Why then, is this the case. Why also is this effect getting stronger, and is there significance to why placebos are getting significantly stronger in the US?

What is a placebo, exactly? Funk and Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia defines a placebo as, “a ‘dummy’ treatment. The term was originally applied to an inert substance such as sugar, that is used in place of an active drug” (“Placebo”). This being said, the placebo is not an actual treatment for anything. The placebo helps the patient think that they are healing, and sometimes it actually works. This is where the placebo effect comes into play. A medical doctor from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center told a reporter from Science Daily what the placebo effect is. He or she, remaining anonymous, stated, “The placebo effect is often described as events that occur when patients show improvement from treatments that contain no active ingredients” (“The Importance of Placebo Effects to medical care”). The placebo, such as a sugar pill, is prescribed to whom who, usually, has a medical condition that cannot be cured. The doctor who prescribed this pill can convince the patient that he or she will be cured by this

One of the most remarkable stories in medical history is the effect the placebo had on Mr. Wright. He had an amazing result from an “soon-to-be-labeled placebo cancer drug, with baseball-sized tumors melting over the weekend.” (Maloney 2014). When the news was revealed it showed that the drug was ineffective so, Wrights doctor did something completely unethical. He injected Mr. Wright with a saline solution and told him it was an “improved version of the drug.” (Maloney 2014). Mr. Wrights cancer resolved, only to creep back when the cancer drug was unmasked by the media. Maloney, C. (2014, November/December). What are some of the best stories of the placebo effect curing patients? Retrieved July 28, 2016, from https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-stories-of-the-placebo-effect-curing-patients

For sure, the expectation is the key point of the phenomenon, as Irving Kirsch, an associate director of the Placebo Study in Harvard University, said “the way we feel depends largely on how we anticipate that we will feel” (Punset 1). Placebo effect is not magic and it is not a fake drug either, and due to the enhance of technology, scientist know that the brain is capable to produce their own medicine. For some people, could mean as a simple talk but for the patient could entirely depends of how he or she will heal. As a final though, if the brain is able to cure the rest of the body, there is no sense why not to use

W. Grant Thompson is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. During the years Thompson has gathered an expansive reservoir of medical knowledge as a clinical researcher, general practitioner, and he has published several books, some being scientific and others not. This book reviews the history of the placebo effect--the positive effects of the doctor's presence and personality and the patient's belief in the efficacy of the treatment--and the evidence of its benefits to health. This book’s research shows that even though the patients are given “medicine”, (which contains nothing that could help them), the patients show some signs of improvement due to what their belief is. Although this book was published several years ago, the

Knowing that placebos can be an effective method of treatment, Espay et al. (2015) wanted to see if the price of a placebo would alter its effectiveness. The researchers conducted a double-blind study with twelve patients with moderate to severe Parkinson’s disease. The participants were told that they would be receiving two new injectable dopamine agonists which, despite their large difference in price ($100 and $1,500) were thought to be equally effective. Participants were further told that the purpose of the study was to support that the two new medications were indeed equal in their effectiveness.

This type of medical advancement called the Placebo Effect came about in the twelfth century (Brown, 2013). The word “placebo” is Latin for “I shall please,” and by the eighteenth century it became known as a medical term associated with a negative impression (Brown. 2013). A person may take a placebo and use it against another’s mind. Another definition for a placebo is a medical treatment that is usually simulated to deceive the patient into thinking there was an advancement in his/her condition. A copious amount of

Today, pharmaceutical drugs are at the core of our healing rituals. Most physicians rely on scientific research to understand the pathophysiology of disease and to prescribe necessary treatments. Many of these evidence-based research use randomized placebo-controlled trials (RCTs) as the gold standard to test the efficacy of new treatments and clinical interventions. These clinical trials compare the effects of active treatment on a group of participants with that of a placebo group, whereby, neither the doctors nor the patients know what treatment is actually administered to a participant (‘double blinding’). The superior effect of a drug is often believed to be manifested as the treatment effect, while the unspecific effects of placebo are the additive effects. The problem, however, with this model is that the placebo effect may occur in both treatment arms and the patients' expectation for improvement with the chance of receiving active treatment may affect the outcome of treatments. This is exemplified by some studies, which use placebos that mirror the side effects of drug treatment, thereby increasing the response in this group compared to those of an inert placebo that does not cause side effects.

Furthermore, the placebo effect inevitably plays a role every time a general practitioner and their patients interact. It has been shown, for example, that a painkiller works better if it’s openly injected than when it is injected through an already existing drip, unbeknownst to the patient. (8) The doctor can choose to minimize or maximize the effect (9). Some even go so far as suggesting that to some extent, doctors themselves are placebos (4), as the approach the physician takes on an issue can increase or decrease the likelihood of the patient feeling better. An experiment was conducted in which a general practitioner compared four groups of patients who suffered from symptoms that had no clear cause, to determine the effects of a positive

The word placebo comes from the Latin phrase meaning “I shall please.” A placebo is a treatment or medicine to aid in the process of making you feel better. A placebo does not actually treat an illness or sickness. The human mind is trained to believe that taking pills improves one’s well-being and therefore makes us feel better. Placebos can come in many forms. Some of the most familiar forms of placebos are sugar pills, aspirin, injections, minerals, and antibiotics. It is generally given to individuals who are in severe pain and there is currently no treatment available. A placebo can also be given when the patient constantly requests the provider for medication. Placebos are also primarily used in diseases where pain is a major

The general population has deciphered placebo to be that of many counterfeit shams. Countless peoples have fabricated placebo to be a fraudulent remedy only used to conclude if innovative drugs comprise of pain relieving outcomes. Placebo as a definition is a harmless pill, medicine, or procedure prescribed more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for the physiological

Placebos are generally used to test medications that have no other similar competitors that produce the desired effect. The general rule when using placebos against the medication, is that if the placebo outperforms the medication being tested then the trial has failed. ("Advantages and Disadvantages of Placebo-controlled Trials." Advantages and Disadvantages of Placebo-controlled Trials. N.p., n.d. Web.). There have been several cases in which the placebo had out-performed the drug being tested, more commonly in pain relief drugs. This is believed to be due to the objective changes in the brain that releases endorphins in response to the want of the medication to work. It is known that the greater the want for the medication to work (placebo in this case), the more likely it is to have an effect (Freeman, Shanna. "How the Placebo Effect Works." HowStuffWorks Science. HowStuffWorks, 20 July 2016. Web.). In trials for medication in relieving joint pains, the group given the placebos had almost the exact same results as those who were given the actual medication. While showing the creators of the medication that it may not have been exactly what they were looking to produce, it also displayed the power of the human brain. If the subject believes that the medication will work in cases such as these, even with a placebo, there is a