Therapeutic Effect - Scope of Treatments

Scope of Treatments

Many people think of therapeutic and undesired side effects as only applying to medications, drugs or supplements, perhaps because pharmacology approaches are more often more rigorously evaluated by carefully controlled comparisons with placebo treatments, but this is not the case. It applies to any treatment approach, including surgery, physical therapy, psychotherapy, treatment with compounds, faith healing, hypnosis, holistic methods, etc.; any method of which one can conceive.

The administration of a compound was selected for the pharmacologic example below because this form of treatment is often more readily evaluated by comparison with a placebo approach; the comparison designed so that people are unable to recognized the difference, at least at a conscious or group awareness level. Other therapeutic methods are typically more difficult to test because the test subjects can more easily recognize the key aspect of treatment which is being tested; it thus becomes far more difficult to apply the placebo control methodology. The placebo effect is always relevant in all treatments; behavior and symptoms do change, however the presumed mechanism may primarily be the power of the mind which controls behavior and perception all the time, and the fact that if an individual believes that their situation will change then their situation actually does change.

To maximize the therapeutic effects and minimize the side effects of any treatment, recognition and quantification of the situation, in multiple dimensions, is a critical prerequisite. There are many situations in which the effects of a treatment, both those often viewed as both desirable and undesirable can be used in combination with other treatments in a complex strategy so that, for the individual being treated, the best end results actually depend on side effects contributing to the overall therapeutic benefit. Achieving this reflects a higher degree of physician and patient interactive relationship, trust, sophistication and skill. The same principles applies to all agents, including what most people view as simply food, water, air and oxygen. Situation, timing and great familiarity of the multiple usual responses to agents is critically important for wisely selecting all treatments. Maintaining and improving health strongly depends on promoting desirable effects while lessening the impact of undesirable effects of many interacting issues. However, the number of interacting issues, powerfully influenced by internal individual control mechanisms, make understanding and knowing all the issues a mind-boggling complex task which, at least in this day and age, is never totally understandable. There are simply too many complex interacting issues, never totally knowable, definable and predictable.