What is a "placebo effect"?
Patients who get better without being given any "real" treatment are thought to be helped by a placebo effect. Examples of this are pills that have no active ingredient or the use of electrical therapy that isn’t turned on. The patient has a physical or emotional change because he or she expected to get better. The placebo effect also occurs if the health care worker giving the treatment expects it to help. Researchers agree that there is a definite placebo effect in many cases. Studies have shown this occurs in 20 to 90 percent of all patients. No one knows for sure how this happens or how to make it happen. Scientists continue to study it with great interest.
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