Guest guest Posted March 19, 2004 Report Share Posted March 19, 2004 , " Fernando Bernall " < fbernall> wrote: > > " Patients were allocated at random to one of three treatment groups: > real acupuncture plus standard medical care; sham acupuncture > (needles were simply stuck into non-acupuncture points) plus standard > medical care; or standard medical care alone. " > > Seems that 'standard medical care' should be consider part of the > equation. How does this change the results? One way to balance variables in a study is to include the normal mode of treatment for each group. Standard treatment has powerful placebo effects because it is the cultural norm. If standard treatment is not given to each group, then it may appear that standard tx is far more effective than alternative tx. this study shows how much better people do with sham or real vs. no acu at all. are you suggesting that the standard care somehow affected the sham group differently than the real group? In addition, I assume standard care meant things like antiinflammatories, exrcise and traction, which I would expect all our patients to be doing anyway. so this may be realisic since most patients seek out either WM care or both WM and CAM. very few (4% according to a harvard study) use only CAM . As a side note, acutoday reports only 3% of americans use acupuncture. We have a lotof work to do. I said before if we don't do the research, someone else will and then they will take it all away. does anyone still think some backroom political deal is going to undo this mess? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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