Guest guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 I saw a show on PBS last night hosted by Alan Alda where they were exploring placebo effect for the most part. Ted Kaptchuck was interviewed and described his sham vs. 'real' acupuncture treatments in the treatment of RSI. The practitioner would put a washer over the point, then cover it with tape, apply the needle device and call it a treatment. Supposedly neither the patient or practitioner should be able to tell if the real treatment or sham treatment was administered. I was wondering if I'm missing something here... where's the Qi? Neither treatment stimulated the needle until 'de qi'. I don't think I was taught out of the back of a turnip truck, but I was taught you have to get de qi to have an effective Tx. I know that some may disagree about that, but in general, de qi is a typical sensation. I worry sometimes about the ramifications of some of the work of researchers. Maybe I've missed something obvious, but I hate to think of the implications of a poorly done study done by people with big names and the impact on a whole profession working hard for mainstream acceptance. Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 This is exactly the kind of research they are doing at Sloan-Kettering...at their alternate healthcare clinic. Part of the idea is that even those getting the real needles don't know they're getting real acu b/c they think it may not be in the proper points. So the idea is that they are acupuncture-naive and don't know what to expect. I was hired a year ago to work in that clinic - that was to be partly research patients and partly "real" (as opposed to sham...ie. experimental group...ha) patients. It turned out they didn't have enough patients after all to keep busy all the acupuncs they hired, so i wasn't there long. Just long enough to get a gist of the protocol. Anyway, it seemed to me they were allowing a little bit of de qi. I was skeptical but would have liked to have been there a little more to get a better sense of what they were trying to do. (The trials were divided into groups for hot flashes, SOB, chronic fatigue...and had some others planned...all for side effects of chemo/rad, obviously). ann I saw a show on PBS last night hosted by Alan Alda where they were exploring placebo effect for the most part. Ted Kaptchuck was interviewed and described his sham vs. 'real' acupuncture treatments in the treatment of RSI. The practitioner would put a washer over the point, then cover it with tape, apply the needle device and call it a treatment. Supposedly neither the patient or practitioner should be able to tell if the real treatment or sham treatment was administered. I was wondering if I'm missing something here... where's the Qi? Neither treatment stimulated the needle until 'de qi'. I don't think I was taught out of the back of a turnip truck, but I was taught you have to get de qi to have an effective Tx. I know that some may disagree about that, but in general, de qi is a typical sensation. I worry sometimes about the ramifications of some of the work of researchers. Maybe I've missed something obvious, but I hate to think of the implications of a poorly done study done by people with big names and the impact on a whole profession working hard for mainstream acceptance. Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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