In Search for a Cure: Is there a Holly Grail?

Question:

Are you familiar with the approach to
treating Parkinson’s used by the
Australian natural therapist
Noel Batten, detailed on his website
http://www.parkinsonsdiseasecure.com
and what is your opinion of that method?

Response:

Out of the many people I have talked
with or interviewed, I have not run
across one person who has had any
experience with this particular treatment
modality.

I am familiar with the web site and can
offer my reactions based on my impression
of his website.

It appears to me this man implicitly
offers a “cure” in five days. This is
quite ridiculous. No “cure” exists.

People certainly have recovered and are
symptom free today, but the minimum time
I have heard it takes to recover is two
years. The average time appears to be
3-4 years.

The sales pitch on the web site involves
before and after videos of people who
received his treatment. What you observe
are marked improvements. This is the norm
for many forms of body therapies.

People often do show marked improvement
after receiving a variety of different
treatments. They often look like
different people.

I have interviewed a number of people who
report seeing a therapists of one type of
another (craniosacral, Bowen, energy healing,
drumming, healing touch, reiki, etc.),
who tell me that for a period of time after
the treatment (4 hours, one day, two days –
the time varies) they were totally symptom
free. After the the brief honeymoon however,
symptoms returned.

The videos on this web site do show the
physical manifestation of trauma to the
physical body. The body becomes contorted
and twisted. Various body therapies
are helpful in releasing the tension that
is held in the body tissues.

The theme of this web site is:

Come to me. I will fix you.

This is not how people recover. The people
who recover wind up figuring out ways to
heal themselves.

No one can fix them or cure them. The tone
of the sales pitch on this web site feels
manipulative to me.

My research shows only a combination of
approaches will work. There is no single
answer. There is no holly grail.

There are however two benefits to a search
for the holly grail if you choose to go on
such a journey.

First, you exercise your mind. This
creates new neural pathways and is a good
thing. (Of course there are many other ways
to accomplish the same benefit).

Second, if you physically have to move or
travel to find the people who claim they
will fix you, you will receive the benefits
of physical exercise. This also is a good thing.

Does this man’s therapy help? I certainly can not
say.

I am very impressed in general with the
research on alternative therapies. Study
after study shows that one therapy after
another helps relieve symptoms.

I have stacks of studies for one therapy or
another that report positive findings. Many
studies use small samples, so the results
will never show statistical significance
because of the small sample sizes.

The actual effect sizes reported in
many studies are impressive. In some studies
effects are not large but they nonetheless
reflect improvements. Effects in many of
these studies are also larger than
any effects reported in the drug studies.

My point is that there a many modalities that
provide ways to get symptom relief. The challenge
is to do a little experimentation for yourself
and figure out which ways are most useful
for you.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Parkinsons Recovery

© 2008 Parkinsons Recovery

2 thoughts on “In Search for a Cure: Is there a Holly Grail?

  1. I am “Noel Batten” & I wish to comment on your judgement of me & my claim of discovering “a cure” that can often get good results, “even remission” over Parkinson’s disease & the associated symptoms, in just 4 to 14 days. QUESTION: – “How can you possibly make such comments, & condem my claim of discovering “a cure” without interviewing me, to ask me questions? It is easy for anybody to just sit back & judge me negatively, without having any contact with me, to understand my reasoning… There is a simple answer for everything I claim, & there are simple answers for the unique approach I use, & why my unique approach often gets very good results (even remission), in just 4 to 14 days, & you cannot figure it out on your own, “BECAUSE” I use a very different approach…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.