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Placebo Effect Essay

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Placebos in Medicine - Placebo Effect in Surgery for Ménière's Disease
1. What was the rationale for doing the study?
Torok, an author to another study regarding Ménière's Disease, reviewed 834 articles pertaining to Ménière's Disease between 1951 and 1975. He found that advocates of either medical or surgical treatments claimed success in 60% to 80% of patients. Because there are so many different therapies deemed successful, Torok believed that the placebo effect might be a common factor to all of those treatments.
The goal of any treatment of Ménière's Disease is alleviation of vertiginous attacks as well as removing the fear of getting these attacks. Because the basic cause of this disease is basically unknown, there is no proof that medical, physical, or surgical treatment has the most symptomatic effect over the other. The authors of this study are attempting to prove that the placebo effect is a common factor in treatments for Ménière's Disease, specifically surgery.
2. Briefly, explain the design of the study. …show more content…

One group was to receive the active surgery which was an endolymphatic sac shunt operation (Silastic sheet mastoid shunt), while the other group receives the placebo surgery which was a regular mastoidectomy, but neither group was to know which operation they are receiving. All patients were asked to score their dizziness, nausea; vomiting, vertigo, tinnitus, hearing impairment, and pressure in the ears on a scale 3 months preoperational and 12 months post operational. After the 12 months, post op was finished the patients were asked to rate the value of their operation/surgery on a scale of good, reasonable or

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