Question

Stress has the potential to decrease the quality of life for both healthy and health-compromised individuals, with research suggesting that even the perception of stress influencing the risk of heart disease. Aromatherapy—essential oils (such as lavender, ylang-ylang, orange, etc.) being inhaled or massaged into the skin—is thought to have calming effects and could help relieve stress. While there is some evidence to suggest that receiving regular aromatherapy body massage from trained professionals can relieve anxiety for patients with breast cancer, evidence for the therapeutic impact of aromatherapy in general is mixed and lacks properly designed experimentation. There also remains a paucity of research into the effects of aromatherapy massage on healthy individuals in general.

Our Research Question will be:

Does engaging in aromatherapy foot massage reduce anxiety?

Explain how a control group with a placebo would be assigned in this study, or explain why a placebo would not be possible.

Please make the answer short (around 3 sentences)

Answer 1

In clinical trails a placebo is a treatment given to one group of respondents that looks like a treatment but is actually an inactive substance or ingredient that has no effect on patients health. The patient is not aware of the fact that he is being given a placebo. But aromatherapy is related to aroma and it is the aroma that is bekieved to have some calming effect. Now in case of placebo if there is no aroma then the respondent will get to know about placebo. And if there is aroma it does not make sense to call it placebo. So, placebo would not be possible.