Lisa A Conboy

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Verified

Lisa verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• MA, MS, ScD
• Instructor at Harvard University

Our analysis considers if persistence of treatment effect may be related to continued treatment after study completion. Our data comes from a completed Army-funded Randomized Controlled Trial -The Effectiveness of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Gulf War Illness (Army grant W81XWH-09-2-0064). This pragmatic RCT applied acupuncture treatment in a th...

Purpose: This study evaluates the development of therapeutic alliance (TA) and its clinical influence on acupuncture treatments for Gulf War Illness (GWI). Methods: Data were collected from a 3.5-year US Army-funded randomized clinical trial (RCT) involving thirty-two experienced acupuncturists who provided individualized treatments over approximat...

With Diabetes Mellitus (DM) on the rise, biomedicine has identified its treatment as challenging due to the multitude of interventions necessary for disease management1. Biomedical treatment utilizes a single action approach, placing patients in the care of one specialist at a time. The traditional Chinese Herbal Medical approach can be of great ut...

Introduction Traditional East Asian Medicine (TEAM) relies heavily on case reports for clinical decision-making. However, methods for analyzing data from multiple case reports are currently underdeveloped. This protocol will outline novel methods for secondary analyses of TEAM case reports and clinical registry data focused on pain to inform practi...

Background: While acupuncture use and research publications are growing in the United States, we know little about acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine (ACHM) students’ beliefs and behaviors regarding acupuncture research. Purpose: This project aims to identify barriers to teaching acupuncture research and opportunities to engage and excite stu...

The main objective of this qualitative analysis is to increase the quality of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) research education. Subject matter experts and stakeholders were sent a list of possible topics to include in a research course and were asked to comment on it, add or subtract topics, and suggest appropriate research papers to use, less...

The term “acupuncture” commonly refers to a non-pharmacologic therapy that is increasingly employed by diverse segments of the population for a wide variety of complaints including pain, insomnia, anxiety, depression, frozen shoulder, and other issues. The term is also used as a short-hand for the wider medical system from which the placement of ne...

The Brain Sciences Editorial Office retracts the article, “Sex-Based Differences in Plasma Autoantibodies to Central Nervous System Proteins in Gulf War Veterans versus Healthy and Symptomatic Controls” [...]

Background Individuals with a uterus experience menopause, the cessation of menses, on average at age 51 years in the United States. While menopause is a natural occurrence for most, over 85% of women experience multiple interfering symptoms. Menopausal women face health disparities, including a lack of access to high-quality healthcare and greater...

The Brain Sciences Editorial Office retracts the article “Using Plasma Autoantibodies of Central Nervous System Proteins to Distinguish Veterans with Gulf War Illness from Healthy and Symptomatic Controls” [...]

References for SAR Poster The Health-enhancing Roots of East Asian Medicine

Title: A Qualitative exploration of how East Asian Medicine concepts can be used in modern health research Purpose: There is much published science supporting East Asian Medicine (EAM) as a treatment for many health issues. Public Health has made great advancement in understanding the effects of health disparities globally. East Asian Medical Model...

The Transtheoretical Model of Change identifies key stages in behavior change, including a maintenance stage occurring when a behavior has been upheld for at least 6 months. Health and wellness coaching has demonstrated support for health behavior change, but maintenance of gains has received little attention. Our rapid systematic literature review...

Objective Individuals in the menopausal transition often seek healthcare in the United States. However, many individuals who seek healthcare do not receive treatments for their symptoms. And, some lack access to providers of both medical care and evidence-based integrative health interventions such as acupuncture, acupressure, or massage. A potenti...

Importance Given that many midlife women use evidence-based non-pharmacologic interventions for symptom management during the menopausal transition and early postmenopause and that many women experience two or more symptoms (symptom cluster), it is important to review recent evidence on said interventions for symptom clusters. This review focuses o...

Background & Aims Many of the reported adverse events in clinical trials of IBS are extra-intestinal symptoms, which are typically assessed by open-ended questions during the trial and not at baseline. This may lead to misattribution of some pre-existing symptoms as side effects to the treatment. Methods The current study analyzed data from a 6-we...

Background There is increasing evidence suggesting that open-label placebo (OLP) is an effective treatment for several medical conditions defined by self-report. However, little is known about patients’ experiences with OLP, and no studies have directly compared patients’ experiences in double-blind placebo (DBP) conditions. Methods This study was...

Introduction East Asian Medicine (EAM) is a Whole System medicine that includes Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). Chinese herbal medicine has been utilized to reduce symptom burden in infectious disease, with notable theoretical reformulations during pandemics of the 3rd, 13th, and 17th centuries. Today, Licensed Acupuncturists trained in CHM have uti...

Internalized weight stigma (IWS) is independently associated with less intuitive eating (i.e., eating based on endogenous hunger/satiety cues) and higher Body Mass Index (BMI), and intuitive eating training is commonly conceptualized as protective against the effects of IWS on poor behavioral health. The 3-way relationship between IWS, intuitive ea...

The analysis of clinical questionnaire data comes with many inherent challenges. These challenges include the handling of data with missing fields, as well as the overall interpretation of a dataset with many fields of different scales and forms. While numerous methods have been developed to address these challenges, they are often not robust, stat...

Abstract: This study obtained novel data regarding mediums’ accuracy when reporting different types of information and the relationship of accuracy to mediums’ learning styles and sensory modality preferences (LS/SMPs). The medium participants in this study were 12 Windbridge Certified Research Mediums (WCRMs) who were previously screened and certi...

Gulf War illness (GWI) is a chronic illness with no known validated biomarkers that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. As a result, there is an urgent need for the development of an untargeted and unbiased method to distinguish GWI patients from non-GWI patients. We report on the application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscop...

Aims Gulf War Illness (GWI), a chronic debilitating disorder characterized by fatigue, joint pain, cognitive, gastrointestinal, respiratory, and skin problems, is currently diagnosed by self-reported symptoms. The Boston Biorepository, Recruitment, and Integrative Network (BBRAIN) is the collaborative effort of expert Gulf War Illness (GWI) researc...

Background and Purpose: Stress contributes to dietary patterns that impede health. Yoga is an integrative stress management approach associated with improved dietary patterns in burgeoning research. Yet, no research has examined change in dietary patterns, body mass index (BMI), and stress during a yoga intervention among stressed adults with poor...

The analysis of clinical questionnaire data comes with many inherent challenges. These challenges include the handling of data with missing fields, as well as the overall interpretation of a dataset with many fields of different scales and forms. While numerous methods have been developed to address these challenges, they are often not robust, stat...

Veterans from the 1991 Gulf War (GW) have suffered from Gulf War illness (GWI) for nearly 30 years. This illness encompasses multiple body systems, including the central nervous system (CNS). Diagnosis and treatment of GWI is difficult because there has not been an objective diagnostic biomarker. Recently, we reported on a newly developed blood bio...

Purpose Internalized weight stigma (IWS) is common in the United States of America across body weight categories, and is implicated in the development of distress and unhealthy eating behaviors (e.g. overeating, disordered eating) that can foster poor cardiometabolic health. While emerging intervention research shows early promise in reducing IWS,...

For the past 30 years, there has been a lack of objective tools for diagnosing Gulf War Illness (GWI), which is largely characterized by central nervous system (CNS) symptoms emerging from 1991 Gulf War (GW) veterans. In a recent preliminary study, we reported the presence of autoantibodies against CNS proteins in the blood of veterans with GWI, su...

Introduction Cancer Related Fatigue (CRF) is one of the most common and detrimental side effects of cancer treatment. Despite its increasing prevalence and severity CRF remains dismissed by the majority of clinicians. One reason for the apparent gap between clinical need and clinical undertaking is the penchant toward reductionist accounts of the d...

Background Despite appropriate antiseizure drug (ASD) treatment, around two‐thirds of dogs with idiopathic epilepsy (IE) have seizures long‐term and 20–30per cent of affected dogs remain poorly controlled. Methods The current study aim is to test in a field trial the efficacy and tolerability of a commercially available diet enriched with 6.5per c...

Gulf War Illness (GWI) is a chronic disorder affecting approximately 30% of the veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War. It is characterised by a constellation of symptoms including musculoskeletal pain, cognitive problems and fatigue. The cause of GWI is not definitively known but exposure to neurotoxicants, the prophylactic use of pyridostigmine...

Objectives: It has been recommended that clinical trials of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) would be more ecologically valid if its characteristic mode of diagnostic reasoning were integrated into their design. In that context, however, it is also widely held that demonstrating a high level of agreement on initial TCM diagnoses is necessary for...

Background: The diagnostic framework and clinical reasoning process of Chinese medicine are central to the practice of acupuncture and other related disciplines. There is growing interest in integrating it into clinical trials of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine to guide individualized treatment protocols and evaluate outcomes. Strategies th...

Cancer Related Fatigue (CRF) is one of the most common and detrimental side effects of cancer treatment. Despite its increasing prevalence and severity CRF remains dismissed by the majority of clinicians. One reason for the apparent gap between clinical need and clinical undertaking is the penchant towards reductionist accounts of the disorder: a t...

Objectives Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programmes are standard of care for patients following a coronary event. While such exercise-based secondary prevention programme do offer benefits, they are used by less than 30% of eligible patients and attrition within these programmes is high. This project is a nested qualitative assessment of a pilot prog...

Background and Objectives Older adults living in subsidized housing have typically been excluded from exercise intervention studies. We conducted a qualitative study to explore the perceived physical, psychological, social, and economic factors that influenced participation in and adherence to a year-long Tai Chi intervention within an ongoing clus...

Home practice is a major component of mind-body programs, yet little is known about how to optimize the amount of prescribed home practice in order to achieve an effective “dose” of practice while minimizing participant burden. This study tested how varying the amount of home practice in a mind-body program impacts compliance and stress reduction,...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: We know little about US use of Chinese herbal products (CHP). Aim of the study: To understand CHP users' sociodemographic characteristics, CHP indications for use, and prescribing patterns in an acupuncture teaching center in the United States. Materials and methods: Retrospective chart review and descriptive st...

Objective: To qualitatively categorize Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) differential diagnoses in a sample of veterans with Gulf War Illness (GWI) pre- and postacupuncture treatment. Subjects and methods: The authors randomized 104 veterans diagnosed with GWI to a 6-month acupuncture intervention that consisted of either weekly or biweekly ind...

Background Placebo medications, by definition, are composed of inactive ingredients that have no physiological effect on symptoms. Nonetheless, administration of placebo in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and in clinical settings has been demonstrated to have significant impact on many physical and psychological complaints. Until recently, conv...

The present study was part of a group randomized controlled trial in which 7th grade students were assigned to a yoga intervention or physical-education-as-usual. Sixteen students were randomly selected from the yoga condition to participate in one-on-one interviews. Qualitative analyses revealed 13 themes that were organized into two categories: U...

Gulf War illness (GWI) is primarily diagnosed by symptom report; objective biomarkers are needed that distinguish those with GWI. Prior chemical exposures during deployment have been associated in epidemiologic studies with altered central nervous system functioning in veterans with GWI. Previous studies from our group have demonstrated the presenc...

Introduction: Overweight/obesity is a pressing international health concern and conventional treatments demonstrate poor long-term efficacy. Preliminary evidence suggests yoga and Ayurveda may be promising approaches, although recent NHIS estimates indicate rare utilization of Ayurveda in the US. Group-based curricula that integrate yoga and Ayurv...

Objective: To qualitatively explore perceived physical and psychosocial effects and overall patient experience associated with a 12-week tai chi (TC) intervention and an education group in a clinical trial of patients with chronic heart failure (HF). Subjects and methods: We randomized 100 patients with chronic systolic HF (NYHA Class 1-3, eject...

CONSORT Checklist. (DOC)

Protocol. (DOC)

Background: Gulf War Illness is a Complex Medical Illness characterized by multiple symptoms, including fatigue, sleep and mood disturbances, cognitive dysfunction, and musculoskeletal pain affecting veterans of the first Gulf War. No standard of care treatment exists. Methods: This pragmatic Randomized Clinical Trial tested the effects of indiv...

Protocol. (DOC)

Data Used in Calculations. (XLSX)

CONSORT Checklist. (DOC)

Example Treatment Protocol for Subject in Biweekly Treatment Condition. (DOCX)

Lifestyle habits of women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment are largely unknown. Therefore, this prospective study aimed to determine the prevalence of negative lifestyle habits in women undergoing IVF and determine if habits are related to the region in the United States and/or by mandated insurance coverage. A total of 12,811 ART...

Patients enrolled in hospice and palliative care programs experience a vast array of symptoms requiring the expertise of a multidisciplinary team to address. Acupuncture can be an effective addition to a hospice team whose goal is maximum comfort and quality of life (QOL). The objective of this project was to examine the effectiveness of acupunctur...

Background Attention to and perception of physical sensations and somatic states can significantly influence reporting of complaints and symptoms in the context of clinical care and randomized trials. Although anxiety and high neuroticism are known to increase the frequency and severity of complaints, it is not known if other personality dimensions...

Objectives To understand the following about patients using an acupuncture teaching clinic: 1) Sociodemographic characteristics and main complaints. 2) Self-reported level of patient-centered outcomes regarding pain management. Methods/Design: Retrospective chart review. Subjects 458 new patients at NESA clinic during October 1, 2009 to July 31,...

The PanAfrican Acupuncture Project (PAAP) was created in 2001 and is a volunteer-based not-for-profit training organization. It encourages community empowerment and wellness through training local healthcare providers how to use simple, effective acupuncture protocols to treat the symptoms of HIV/ AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other chronic cond...

Introduction: It can be challenging to study complex and novel health states within the parameters of a RCT. This report describes the use of an unblinded Phase II Clinical Trial design to investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of Gulf War Illness (GWI). GWI is a complex illness found among veterans of the first Gulf War, and...

PURPOSE: Minimal research has been conducted on the use of acupuncture for the treatment of illnesses related to post-traumatic stress. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate whether auricular acupuncture treatment using the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) protocol was effective in treating individual aspects of p...

This is the first published qualitative assessment of a yoga program applied in a high school setting. This qualitative interview study was nested in a randomized, controlled trial studying the effects of a yoga program offered in place of a semester of physical education classes at a rural public high school. Student interviews were conducted afte...

2012): Effects of a yoga-based intervention for young adults on quality of life and perceived stress: The potential mediating roles of mindfulness and self-compassion, The Journal of Positive Psychology: Dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice, 7:3, 165-175 This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purp...

Identifying patients who are potential placebo responders has major implications for clinical practice and trial design. Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), an important enzyme in dopamine catabolism plays a key role in processes associated with the placebo effect such as reward, pain, memory and learning. We hypothesized that the COMT functional...

Unlabelled: The increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in humans is a growing public health concern in the United States. Concomitants include poor health behaviors and reduced psychological well-being. Preliminary evidence suggests yoga and treatment paradigms incorporating mindfulness, self-compassion (SC), acceptance, non-dieting, and...

It can be challenging to study complex and novel health states within the parameters of a RCT. This report describes the use of an unblinded Phase II Clinical Trial design to investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of Gulf War Illness (GWI). GWI is a complex illness found among veterans of the first Gulf War, and is characteri...

Acupuncture use remains common in the United States, yet little is known of its utilization by minority and underserved populations. Herein we report first visit data capturing patient profiles, types of conditions presented, and self-reports of their experience and satisfaction with acupuncture accessed at a free care clinic with in a large urban...

To determine the lifestyle behaviors of women before and during an IVF cycle. Prospective survey. Private academically affiliated infertility center. One hundred eighteen women, ages 18-44, scheduled to undergo an assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycle using their own eggs. None. Lifestyle history and daily habit survey. In the month before t...

Objective: To determine the lifestyle behaviors of women before and during an IVF cycle. Design: Prospective survey. Setting: Private academically affiliated infertility center. Patient(s): One hundred eighteen women, ages 18–44, scheduled to undergo an assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycle using their own eggs. Intervention(s): None. Main O...

Evidence that placebo acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic pain presents a puzzle: how do placebo needles appearing to patients to penetrate the body, but instead sitting on the skin's surface in the manner of a tactile stimulus, evoke a healing response? Previous accounts of ritual touch healing in which patients often described enhan...

Objective To investigate whether placebo effects can experimentally be separated into the response to three components – assessment and observation, a therapeutic ritual (placebo treatment), and a supportive patient-practitioner relationship – and then progressively combined to produce incremental clinical improvement in patients with irritable bow...

The goals of the first year/phase of the DOD funded research, GW080059, have been accomplished. We successfully gained IRB and administrative regulatory approval, created our databases, instruments, and tested our procedures on mock volunteers which consisted of SurveyMonkey, the acupuncturists; initiated our advertising and most recently, our part...

Objective: To determine whether placebo responses can be explained by characteristics of the patient, the practitioner, or their interpersonal interaction. Methods: We performed an analysis of videotape and psychometric data from a clinical trial of patients irritable bowel syndrome who were treated with placebo acupuncture in either a warm empathi...

Research in the medical and psychological fields has primarily followed a "disease-focused" approach to health. Although there is growing research on the components and outcomes of well-being, very few studies have focused on traditional practices that can be used as interventions to encourage human flourishing. The current study was developed to a...

There appears to be a significant placebo response rate in clinical trials for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease. Little is known about the determinants and the circumstances associated with placebo response in the treatment of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD). To estimate the magnitude of the placebo response rate in randomized controlled...

Background In diseases defined primarily by the subjective nature of patient self-report, placebo effects can overwhelm the capacity of randomized controlled trials to detect medication-placebo differences. Moreover, it is unclear whether such placebo effects represent genuine psychobiological phenomena or just shifts in selective attention. Knowle...

To determine whether electrodermal measures at Jing-Well acupuncture points, "indicator" points located at the tips of fingers and toes are associated with clinical measures in adolescent women with chronic pelvic pain. The design of this study was a randomized sham-controlled trial. Analyses of electrodermal measures were based on longitudinal, mu...

Supportive social relationships, including a positive patient-practitioner relationship, have been associated with positive health outcomes. Using the data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) undertaken in the Boston area of the United States, this study sought to identify baseline factors predictive of patients' response to an experimentally...