Another group received placebo treatment from a sham clinician who declined to engage in small talk.

It also showed a mean maintenance of remission from 38 to 54 weeks compared with 21 weeks for patients who received placebo treatment.

More recent studies have shown similar degrees of somnolence (approx. 2%) compared with placebo treatment.

These type of definition suggest the view that when given a placebo treatment, one may merely feel better while not being really better.

Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect.