The Placebo Effect

Placebo is a widespread clinical phenomenon that is considered as sham medication. This can also be an effective medication to certain health problems or psychological matters such as depression, chronic diseases, and sometimes, life threatening diseases. On 75 clinical trials conducted between 1981 and 2000, a Columbia University psychiatrist named B. Timothy Walsh found out that on an average of antidepressants given, 30% of people who was given placebos improved. This shows that the response rate of placebos is sharper than the real medicinal drug. Placebo is also an antidepressant that is particularly benefited by young people. Another clinical trial found improvements in 59% of children given placebo medication compared to 69% of the kids

According to the research, it isn’t the actual amount of sleep that matters, but rather the conviction that a person got the rest he/she needed. The researchers consider that while the placebo effect clearly has limit, it has the potential of improving our cognitive functioning, perhaps without even actually uttering sleep

The researcher tried to decrease the dosage of the medicine (co-trimoxazole) that is being used to prove that the medication or the treatment of pneumonia to the children between 24 months old and 59 months old. There are different results that was gathered after giving the ill children the decreased dosage co-trimoxazole, the first and second result of the placebo trial was proven effective but reducing again the dosage of the medicine on the third attempt resulted to 22.9% failure. Despite of the failure, researchers continue to relapse the study and eventually the last few trials of the placebo effect was proven effective. In this case, out of 1200 respondent, 87 still suffers from fast breathing or “pneumonia”, 4 were suffering from chest drawing which is also called in medical as “severe pneumonia”, 4 had lethargy or “very severe pneumonia” and 7 are still taking the prescribed antibiotic treatment. (Lupisan et al.,