The Placebo Effect - Is it real or just imagined?

According to the articles given by our teacher, the placebo effect is “the measurable, observable, or felt improvement in health or behavior to a medication or treatment that has been administered”. The idea of the placebo effect developed from the famous H.K Beecher. Beecher developed 15 experiments in which he evaluated 15 clinical trials with numerous and unique diseases. Beecher found out that 35% of 1,082 patients were relieved or healed by a placebo pill. In all the experiments conducted by Beecher on this controversial topic, Beecher implemented medical personnel, this kind of setting gave the patients comfort in the pill they were given to “alleviate” their disorder or disease. Up to this day, there is no correct answer to rely on, even though psychologists have come up with a hypothesis. They say, that is all in the patient’s minds, they say that a person’s beliefs and hopes revolves around neurochemistry and neurochemistry is said to eventually affect one’s biochemical, immune or hormonal system, this, resulting in a person’s well-being or health. Besides there being a quite scientific explanation to it, psychologists mention that a person’s mind is powerful in the sense that when one is told that a pill will cure the ongoing disease they have, it will eventually heal the person since the person is relying and strongly believing that the pill will be the solution to their problem. Although, Beecher’s experiments seem to be quite logical, denunciations towards his experiments have been made. Among these lies the fact that, the patients were taken off a drug because of side effects, this resulting in improvement in the patient’s bodies since they were taken off something that provided harm in their bodies, this having nothing to do with the placebo effect. Another downfall in Beecher’s experiments is that he only reported to percentage of improvement from the placebo, showing absolutely no percentage in deteriorated conditions of the patients. It is said that one-third of the time, the patients showed improvement but not necessarily because of the placebo pills they were on and that about 40% of the time, conditions showed no improvement at all. Beecher’s major limitation in these experiments was that he did not report all of the gathered data. After all, I personally think that placebo pills should be used more often since they do show a lot of improvement in patients as shown by Beecher. Regarding this issue I strongly agree with the used of placebos and definitely think that they do more good than harm as to drugs. Placebos have no side effects whereas drugs do so. I do concord with psychologists when they say that it all lies in our minds. We have the power in ourselves to heal all by our own or with placebo pills which contain no source that says it will heal one even though it does.

Bibliography:
http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html

Are ALL Memories Alike?

Gender Differences:
The article shows that a group of psychologists from Stockholm, Sweden have made experiments on trying to show if women or men exceed each other’s knowledge, in other words, which one is better. The experiment was carried out by pulling out three groups of participants with black and white pictures of men and women. They concluded that women tend to have a better episodic memory than men do, this because women are usually very meticulous with detail, especially in men. In fact, the article reads that women pay more attention to women faces than to male faces, making it easier for them to recall the face in future moments. The psychologists also discovered that men exceed women’s abilities on remembering symbolic, non-linguistic information, known as visuospatial processing. In the end, we may conclude that women perform much better in episodic memory whereas men perform better in remembering symbols and information that does not require linguistic explanation.

Cultural Differences:
The article about cultural differences explains through a series of descriptions and experiments that memories varies up to 2 years in difference among cultures around the world. For example, it’s said that a Korean may not remember anything before the age of 4 whereas a Maori New Zealander may remember things up to his 2 and a half years of age. A series of psychologists are still working on experiments to show that culture does have an effect in memory, that is, that people’s memory capacity differ from culture to culture. For example they have shown through experiments that a Caucasian has a better capacity of storing memories than do Chinese. After all, the article talks about the differences in memory capacity of people of different cultures among the world although it was not specific in the respect to why it is how it is.

Alzheimer's Disease

In respect to what we have previously since about the Alzheimer's disease, I personally believe it is one of the most terrifying diseases ever. Not only affecting the person with the disease but the loved ones who surround the person are the ones who suffer the most. Although many studies have been conducted to eradicate this deadly disease scientists have failed to come up with its cure. According to previous research, it has been shown that Alzheimer’s disease has a 10% of hitting a person of 65 years old all the way through 80 and in the first place, giving people a slow degradation of thought, memories and language. The Alzheimer’s disease is said to worsen through time but it can be regulated and controlled for a specific time period. The disease, being composed of 3 stages, stage mild, stage moderate and finally stage severe a severe page. The Alzheimer’s disease varies from person to person being it severe in some patients and being moderate in other. Alzheimer’s is said to be a progressive disease which means that it may start being able to be treated and being able to be controlled but in a blink of an eye it kills people as well. In my opinion, it is difficult for people to keep up with such disease since it stops people from being able to accomplish tasks and interferes with people’s daily routines. I can definitely conclude that Alzheimer’s disease influences every aspect of a human being when it affects one. It can consummate one’s mind until the point where one needs permanent assistance for all daily activities consuming the brain’s ability to process information perfectly.