THE IMPORTANCE OF DOMINANT HAND AT PLACEBO EFFECT OF INERT SPRAY TO MUSCULAR FATIGUE INDUCED EXPERIMENTALLY

Purpose: Placebo effect is a phenomenon where the patient’s symptoms can be relieved by a false treatment in pharmacological aspects, most likely because of the patient expectations or believes that the treatment will have success. So, it is a psychological response to the treatment, without being accompanied by the improvement of physical condition. Placebo is often defined as: “Substance or procedure that objectively has no activity (effect) to the state that is treated2”, but although inert substance has resulted on the improvement of the patient. In fact, we are dealing with a general term of a many different effects that cause people to re-interpret the disease and its symptoms. Curiosity of our study lies on the justification of high level spray usage as a pharmaceutical form to reduce the pain or muscular fatigue. We did it by using a spray that actually has no active pharmacological substance (neither analgesic nor muscular relaxation) while the voluntary tested people didn’t knew about it.

Methods: A total of 50 individuals were subjected to research, each of them separately (unable to contact with each other). To the tested person is given a weight of 2kg in hand and is asked to do 25 flexion-extension of articulation cubiti – m. biceps brachii, while he holds in the slap of the hand the weight of 2kg. After the physical strains (flexion-extension), tested person estimates muscular fatigue-pain with a note from 0-10 (where 0-no fatigue and 10-maximum fatigue). Then is applied the inert spray on m. biceps brachii and after 30 seconds tested person reiterates assessment of muscular fatigue (with grades 0-10). As a rule we have decided that this procedure is firstly done on the right hand and then on the left one (no matters on the dominant side).

Results: In this research Placebo Effect resulted in 34 out of 50 tested individuals, that means in 68% of the cases Placebo Effect was evidenced at least once (in one of the hands or both of them). An interesting fact that we discovered was that Placebo Effect is more likable to happen on the left handed persons. 8 out of 50 were left handed and in 7 cases Placebo Effect was evidenced (87.5%), while at right handed persons (42 out of 50) PE was positive at 28 of them (66.7%).

Conclusion: Subject expectations on pain reduce may be a major factor in the therapeutic process and also on their real life too³. Every single health care professional must consider this factor on the therapeutic treatment toward his patients because as modern medicine advices patient beliefs are always crucial on having positive results.