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Active and Risk To Your

Dec 4, 2012 by DAVE MIHALOVIC
Resting Health Than The
A Doctor's Empathy Will Decrease a Patient's Pain More Than
Medication Itself

Doctors are often not the most empathetic people due the amount
of recurring patterns of complaints they receive on a daily basis.
A doctor-patient relationship built on trust and empathy doesn't
just put patients at ease -- it actually changes the brain's response
Have You Hogwash Alert: to stress and increases pain tolerance, perhaps even more than the
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Medical researchers have shown in recent studies that doctors

who listen carefully have happier patients with better health
outcomes, but the underlying mechanism was unknown, said
Issidoros Sarinopoulos, professor of radiology at Michigan State
University (MSU).

"This is the first study that has looked at the patient-centered

relationship from a neurobiological point of view," said
Sarinopoulos, the lead researcher. "It's important for doctors and
others who advocate this type of relationship with the patient to
show that there is a biological basis."

"The relevance and statistical correlations of patient-centered

relationships and health outcomes is now part of medical
curriculum in many institutions", said Psychologist, Dr. Sophia
Tranter. "What we are finding is that a doctor's relationship and
orientation towards a patient and their well being correlates to a
more signficant degree than even the medication itself."

The study involved randomly assigning patients to one of two

types of interview with a doctor before undergoing an MRI scan.
In the patient-centered approach, doctors addressed any concerns
participants had about the procedure and asked open-ended
questions allowing them to talk freely about their jobs, home life
and other psychological and social factors affecting health. The
other patients were asked only specific questions about clinical
information such as their medical history and what drugs they
were taking.

As expected, those who had the patient-focused interview

reported greater satisfaction and confidence in their doctor in a
post interview questionnaire.

The participants then were placed in the MRI scanner and given a
series of mild electric shocks, similar to the discomfort of having
an IV needle inserted, while looking at a photo of a doctor who
they were told was supervising the procedure. The scans
measured activity in the anterior insula -- the part of the brain that
makes people aware of pain -- in anticipation of the shocks and
when they actually occurred.

The brain scans revealed those who had the patient-centered

interview showed less activity in the anterior insula when they
were looking at a photo of the interviewing doctor than when the
doctor in the photo was unknown. Those participants also
self-reported less pain when the photos showed the known doctor.

Sarinopoulos said the study had a small sample of just nine

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women and will need to be replicated on a larger scale.

Dr. Tranter said that larger sample sizes would likely reproduce
the results and support smaller studies. "Pilot research projects of
this kind involving smaller sample sizes are typicallyy validated
on larger scales when large amounts of empirical data support the
current evidence," she stated.

"We need to do more research to understand this mechanism," he

said, "but this is a good first step that puts some scientific weight
behind the case for empathizing with patients, getting to know
them and building trust."

Published in the journal Patient Education and Counseling, the

study was part of a broader effort at MSU, led by professor of
medicine Robert Smith, to establish standards for patient-centered
health care and measure its effectiveness.

"Medicine has for too long focused just on the physical

dimensions of the patient," said Smith, who co-authored the
paper. "Those clinical questions are important and necessary, but
we're trying to demonstrate that when you let patients tell their
story in an unfettered way, you get more satisfied patients who
end up healthier."

Dave Mihalovic is a Naturopathic Doctor who specializes in

vaccine research, cancer prevention and a natural approach to
treatment.

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