Placebo/Related Articles

See also changes related to Placebo, or pages that link to Placebo or to this page or whose text contains "Placebo".

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Any form of health treatment may have a placebo effects. Some of the forms mentioned here are controversial in that some observers believe they have only placebo effect, while others believe that they can have direct therapeutic effects, which never excludes placebo effect. This article does not take a position on whether techniques have therapeutic effects in addition to placebo.

Parent topics

• Mind-body therapies [r]: Techniques to improve mental or physical health that involve creating images, suggestion, states of relaxation to reduce the impact of pain or to accelerate healing ^[e]
• Integrative medicine [r]: Organized health care that involves willing cooperation between mainstream and complementary medicine ^[e]

Subtopics

• Placebo effect [r]: the effect of a medical treatment that is attributable to an expectation that the treatment will have an effect ^[e]
• Sham treatment [r]: Use of some parts of a treatment that do have physical effects on a subject, which are intended to act as placebo where it is impossible to have a completely neutral equivalent to the treatment. While a pill with no active ingredients can be a placebo, for surgery, sham surgery would require at least anesthesia and an incision. ^[e]

Other related topics

• Alternative medicine [r]: Add brief definition or description
  • Acupuncture [r]: A form of alternative medicine that involves inserting and manipulating needles into 'acupuncture points' on the body with the aim of restoring health and well-being. ^[e]
  • Homeopathy [r]: System of alternative medicine involving administration of highly diluted substances with the intention to stimulate the body's natural healing processes, not considered proven by mainstream science. ^[e]
  • Therapeutic touch [r]: A form of energy healing, performed by a therapist positioning hands over the patient's body, and sensing and adjusting energy fields ^[e]
• Hormesis [r]: A quantitative and qualitative dose-response relationship in which the effect at low concentrations occurs in the opposite direction from that expected from the effect observed at higher concentrations. ^[e]
• Randomized controlled trial [r]: Method used to ensure objectivity when testing medical treatments. ^[e]
• Regression to the mean [r]: Add brief definition or description
• William Cullen [r]: (1710-1790) The leading British physician of the 18th century. ^[e]