Using Magnets for Pain Relief

The idea that magnets can relieve pain has been much debated since the 1960's when Carlos Vallbona conducted his landmark study "Response of pain to static Magnetic fields in postpolio patients, a double blind Pilot study." The conclusion of this study seems to show that magnets have a significant effect on pain relief. In this paper I will explain the similarities and differences of the Pre-Test and Post-Test results as well as the amount of positive change in pain relief for both the Active and Placebo groups in the study.

As I looked over the Pre-Test results for the study I found that the Active group and Placebo group data was very similar. The range of the data only differed by 1 point of perceived pain. All of the participants reported a high level of perceived pain of above 7 points with over 70% of the Active and Placebo group participants reporting the maximum level of 10 points. In further quantitative analysis I also found that both the Active and Placebo groups shared a Median and Mode of 10 points and the Mean only differed by 0.097 which is very insignificant. I feel that this data shows the concrete similarity between the Active and Placebo group Pre-Test results.

After closely analyzing the Post-Test results I found that there is a vast difference between the Active and Placebo group data. The range of the information differs by a significant 4 points of perceived pain. Most of the Placebo group experienced little to no change in perceived pain, whereas most of the Active group experienced a significant change of 4 or more points of perceived pain. There were also very significant differences between the Active and Placebo groups in the Mean, Median, and Mode of the results. The Pre-Test data showed that both groups shared a Median and Mode but the Post-Test results show a difference of 5 points in the Median, and between 6 and 8 points in the Mode. The insignificant difference in Mean of the Pre-Test data is also replaced by a very significant difference of 4.015 points. These statistics clearly show that there is a major difference in the amount of perceived pain in Post-Test results.