Danger of assumptions

“New is better!”

Just because a therapy is new, expensive, technologically impressive, or brand-named does not mean that it is better or safer than other treatments.

People often believe that therapy are better just because they are new, expensive, technologically impressive, or made by a company with a well-known brand name. In fact, such treatments are not necessarily better than others. For example, for a while, many people believed computer-based training in rapid auditory-temporal processing would help children with language difficulties. However, when robust research was carried out using fair comparisons, this proved not to be the case.

In addition to this, the safety of new therapies is often uncertain. This is because some reactions to therapies (side effects) take time to appear and it may not be possible to know if they will appear unless people getting the therapy have been followed-up over a long time.

BEWARE of claims that a therapy helps or is safe just because it is new, expensive, or brand-named.

REMEMBER: Think about whether the therapy has been tested in fair comparisons.