US Pharm. 2009;34:5(Oncology suppl):14.
In a clinical trial of 88 subjects with cancer, patients who wore acupressure wristbands had significantly less nausea during radiation treatment. University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) researchers reported a 23.8% decrease in nausea for all patients who wore wristbands, compared to a 4.8% decrease in the control group of patients who did not wear wristbands.One of the groups of patients wearing wristbands received information that wristbands reduced nausea in earlier research, and the other group wearing wristbands received more neutral information. No difference in reported nausea was found between these two groups of patients. The study results were reported in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.
Joseph A. Roscoe, PhD, corresponding author and research associate professor at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at URMC, said "In this study we attempted to manipulate the information we gave to patients, to see if their expectations about nausea could be changed. As it turned out, our information to change people's expectations had no effect--but we still found that the wristbands reduce nausea symptoms."
