Placebo Effect - Essay Example

?Q How would you explain the placebo effect and the role of endorphins to patients who wish to try unproven treatment methods that they might see on TV, or find on the internet? Placebo effect A placebo is a substance or additional type of treatment that appears just like a normal treatment or medicine, but it is not. It is actually an inactive "look-alike" treatment or substance. This indicates that it is not a medicine. The individual who is receiving a placebo does not know for sure that the treatment is not real. Occasionally the placebo is in the form of a "tablets" but a placebo can also be an injection, syrup, a process, or some other kind of treatment that doesn't directly influence the illness being treated. Even though placebos do not act on the disease, they seem to have an effect in about 1 out of 3 patients. An alteration in a person's symptoms as a result of getting a placebo is called the placebo effect. Usually the term "placebo effect" verbalizes to the helpful effects of a placebo in relieving symptoms. This effect usually remains only a short time, and is consideration having something to do with the body's own chemical ability to briefly relieve pain or certain other symptoms. But sometimes the effect goes the other way, and causes unpleasant or worse symptoms. These may include headaches, nervousness, nausea, or constipation, to name a few of the possible "side effects." The unpleasant effects that happen after getting a placebo or an inactive treatment are sometimes called the nocebo effect. These two types of outcomes are sometimes called expectation effects. This means that the person taking the placebo may experience something along the lines of what he or she expects to happen. If a person anticipates feeling better, that may happen. If the person believes that he or she is getting a high dose medicine, the placebo may be thought to cause the side effects. The placebo does not cause any of these effects directly. Instead, the person's belief in or experience of the placebo helps change the symptoms, or change the way the person perceives the symptoms. Along with the placebo or nocebo effect, incidental events (unrelated effects that may have happened without the placebo) may also be connected to the placebo because of their timing. For example, a headache or rash that happens soon after taking a placebo may be caused by something else entirely, but the person may think the placebo caused it. The same can be said for good outcomes: if a person happened to start feeling better after taking a placebo, that improvement may be thought to be due to the placebo. Some scientific evidence suggests that the placebo effect may be partly due to the release of endorphins in the brain. Endorphins are the body's natural pain killers. But there is probably more to it than this. Many people feel better after they get medical treatments that they expect to work. But the opposite can also happen, and this seems to support the idea of the expectation effect even more. For example, in one study, people with Alzheimer's disease were less affected by pain medicines. These patients required higher doses -- possibly because they had forgotten they were getting the drugs, or they forgot that the pain medicines had worked for them before. Some believe that placebos seem to work because many illnesses improve over time even without treatment. People may also take better care of themselves by exercising, eating healthier, or resting if they are taking a placebo. Just as natural endorphins may relieve pain once they are released, some research shows the brain may respond to an imagined scene much as it would to something it actually sees. A placebo may help the brain remember a time before the symptoms and bring about a chemical change. This is a theory called remembered wellness ("The dark side," ). Discuss the problem of cultural bias in intelligence tests and the attempts to produce a culture-fair measure of intelligence. Do you think it possible to create a completely bias free I.Q. test? Why or why not? Intelligence test Intelligence is most generally indication of quickness of understanding or mental power and ability. The testing of these capabilities can be limited according to the race and culture of the person under evaluation, as a result controversy regarding the feasibility of IQ tests has raged constantly. Do culture fair tests exist? Or are they merely speculative? Culture fair tests were first prepared prior to the First World War in order to assess ability levels of immigrants and other individuals who did not speak English, over the last two decades culture-fair tests of mental ability have gained in visibility and also popularity. In 1968 Taylor argued that there are culture free tests which measure intelligence without putting a premium on education or other cultural factors. Is this statement true? Aspects that should be analyzed carefully In consideration of a thorough answer to the question posed include; the workings of current IQ tests and the regional as well as cultural problems which arise, past research looking at cultural differences, methods posed to overcome these cultural biases and the validity of various current culture fair tests. Whilst deciding whether an intelligence test can be described as culture fair, we must also decide whether we agree or disagree with Taylor. Possibility to create a completely bias free I.Q. test It is enormously tricky to make a test that measures inborn intellect without introducing cultural bias. This has been practically impossible to achieve. One challenge was to eliminate language and aim tests with demonstrations and pictures. An additional approach is to understand that culture-free tests are not feasible and to design culture-fair tests instead.  These tests draw on experiences found in many cultures. Many college students have a middle-class background and may have difficulty appreciating the biases that are part of standardized intelligence tests, because their own background does not disadvantage them for these tests.  By doing some intelligence tests which make non-mainstream cultural assumptions, students can come to experience some of the difficulties and issues involved with culturally biased methods of testing intelligence ("Are iq tests," ). What is the primary purpose of the DSM-IV-TR? What are the benefits of its system and what are the primary concerns/criticisms? The DSM is the short form of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a work consulted by psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians in clinical practice, social workers, medical and nursing students, pastoral counsellors, and other professionals in health care and social service fields.The DSM can also be indicated in the form of edition such as DSM- IV-TR provides a classification of mental disorders, criteria sets to guide the process of differential diagnosis, and numerical codes for each disorder to facilitate medical record keeping. The stated purpose of the DSM is threefold: to provide "a helpful guide to clinical practice"; "to facilitate research and improve communication among clinicians and researchers"; and to serve as "an educational tool for teaching psychopathology." The diagnostic categories of DSM-IV-TR are essentially symptom-based, or, as the manual puts it, based "on criteria sets with defining features." Another term that is sometimes used to describe this method of classification is phenomenological. A phenomenological approach to classification is one that emphasizes externally observable phenomena rather than their underlying nature or origin. Another important characteristic of DSM-IV-TR's classification system is its dependence on the medical model of mental disorders. Such terms as "psychopathology," "mental illness," "differential diagnosis," and "prognosis" are all borrowed from medical practice. One should note, however, that the medical model is not the only possible conceptual framework for understanding mental disorders. Historians of Western science have observed that the medical model for psychiatric problems was preceded by what they term the supernatural model (mental disorders understood as acts of God or the result of demon possession), which dominated the field until the late seventeenth century. The supernatural model was followed by the moral model, which was based on the values of the Enlightenment and regarded mental disorders as bad behaviours deliberately chosen by perverse or ignorant individuals. Criticism of DSM-IV-TR A number of criticisms of DSM-IV-TR have arisen since its publication. They include the following observations and complaints: The medical model underlying the empirical orientation of DSM-IV-TR reduces human beings to one-dimensional sources of data; it does not encourage practitioners to treat the whole person. The medical model perpetuates the social stigma attached to mental disorders. The symptom-based criteria sets of DSM-IV-TR have led to an endless multiplication of mental conditions and disorders. The unwieldy size of DSM-IV-TR is a common complaint of doctors in clinical practice— a volume that was only 119 pages long in its second (1968) edition has swelled to 886 pages in less than thirty years. The symptom-based approach has also made it easier to politicize the process of defining new disorders for inclusion in DSM or dropping older ones. The inclusion of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the deletion of homosexuality as a disorder are often cited as examples of this concern for political correctness. The criteria sets of DSM-IV-TR incorporate implicit (implied but not expressly stated) notions of human psychological well-being that do not allow for ordinary diversity among people. Some of the diagnostic categories of DSM-IV-TR come close to defining various temperamental and personality differences as mental disorders ("What is the," ). Summarize what we know about the relationship between behavior patterns and wellness/disease. Give examples (not from the book) of situations/occupations when a Type A behavior pattern' would be of benefit. Relationship between behaviour patterns and disease There are two types of person some people who are more competitive, restless and quicker to anger while some people are those who are calmer and less rushed by the days events. These two different personality types have been labelled as Type A and Type B. Scientists research and analysed data from thousands of people and placed them into either type A or Type B and then they observed which type is free of heart disease and which is more to be heart disease patient. The biggest difference between these two groups was that the Type A person was 70% more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease, even if they had no prior history of the disease. They suggested that the roots of Type A behaviors are insecurity and low self-esteem. In a society that is basically competitive, insecurity takes root easily. Goals may be unrealistic and expectations overwhelming. The outcome can be low self-esteem. To increase achievements, a person might try to work harder and faster. They may become more time urgent, aggressive or hostile. These are some of the characteristics which typify Type A behavior. The outcome may be a sense of free-floating anxiety because of the inability to meet all these expectations. In recent years, however, it has become established that episodes of myocardial ischemia do not always result in pain, but may more often involve ischemia that is painless or "silent." Even among patients with a clinical history of recurrent angina, ambulatory electrocardiographic studies have shown that silent ischemic episodes occur at least four times as often as ischemic episodes during which the patient reports feeling pain). Furthermore, in some patients with documented myocardial ischemia, anginal pain is virtually absent, and all or nearly all of their ischemic episodes are silent. Depression (ranging from depressed mood up to major depression] is a behavioral symptom that has been reported to occur in up to 40% of patients with coronary artery disease. Depression is also common in virtually all patient groups with life threatening illnesses or chronic physical symptoms. However, depressed mood is most strongly linked with chronic pain. Among patients with back pain, headache, and other diverse forms of chronic pain, found that those who reported greater pain experience typically had MMPI T-scores exceeding 70 on the Depression or D scale. A second behavioral characteristic common among patients with coronary artery disease, which may relate to pain experience, is the Type A behavior pattern observed that coronary patients characterized as Type A experienced silent ischemia more often than Type B patients during treadmill exercise (shown by 35% vs. 25% of patients tested, respectively). They suggested that this difference was due to a greater tendency among Type A individuals to ignore symptoms particularly when engaged in a challenging task. Thus, we also anticipated that Type B patients would report greater anginal pain than Type A patients during ischemia in the present study that employed supine bicycle exercise instead of treadmill testing ("Risks factors for," 2009). References 1. The dark side of the placebo effect: . (n.d.). Retrieved from www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/..placebo-effect../245065/ 2. Are IQ tests biased?. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/biased.html 3. What is the dsm-iv?. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://ivy_league0.tripod.com/rhyme_of_the_ancient_wanderer/id14.html 4. Risks factors for poor mental health wellness. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.mhww.org/risks.html Read More