Dr. Laura Nooteboom (LUMC/Curium) and Prof. Marco Spruit (FWN/LIACS) kickstart a new interdisciplinary research line, together with our research groups, on the potentially highly disruptive research on frequency therapy, which requires in-depth expertises in both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. We take a reproducible mixed-methods approach using industry-standard methodology to optimally ensure FAIR and transparant research rigour with optimal societal impact, taking simultaneously into account both qualitative human psychology-focused interviewing methodology and quantitative Machine Learning-focused data measurement analyses.
The first research component focuses on a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews of uncover perceived health benefits from a private community of active frequency therapy users. The second research component concentrates on reproducing earlier published frequency therapy experiments and their objective measurements of health benefits. The KIEM project concludes with devising a research agenda for followup research to further reignite and propagate frequency therapy for wellbeing, where appropriate. We argue that this domain of frequency therapy is particularly well suited, and even requires, meaningful interdisciplinary mixed-methods research between health psychology and health data science that is evidence-based and reproducible.
We note that frequency therapy as a scientific research field can be considered controversial. First, the available scientific literature on frequency therapy and related research is relatively scarce, with only ~3600 hits on Google Scholar. Second, scientific rigour of these publications is often not very convincing, and third, these studies have been mostly published in less prestigious journals or monographs. Nevertheless, one particularly notable collection of frequency therapy case studies can be found in “The Waves That Heal – The New Science of Radiobiology” by Mark Clement (1963), which reprints many observational case studies sent via letters to Lakhovsky—as published in Lakhvsky (1929)— by licensed and actively practicing medical doctors from hospitals through Europe, about their results obtained in the treatment of plants, animals and human beings using his frequency therapy devices. Another, more recent study on frequency therapy is described by Fischer (2021), which reports on a small-scale experimental study to verify whether the Multiwave Oscillator (MWO) device from the Dutch company MediTech Europe has an objectively measurable effect on the performing researcher himself as a test subject using the “Monitoring of conditions adaptation and correction” (MEDICOR) health data gathering and analysis device.
GOAL: We argue that it is long overdue to assess this potentially disruptive technology of frequency therapy objectively and rigorously, through a transparant pipeline of reproducible mixed methods. Therefore, we propose an entirely new interdisciplinary research initiative that combines our extensive expertises in both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. Dr. Laura Nooteboom is Head of Research and associate professor in qualitative methods at LUMC Curium, whose psychological expertise will also be crucial in properly assessing the likelihood of Placebo-like effects or other human psychological behaviors. Prof. Marco Spruit is full professor of data science & AI techniques in population health at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) in the Faculty of Science, whose technical data expertise will be valuable in safely assessing and analysing all generated frequency data streams and potential health effect associations, and where he leads the Translational Data Science & AI (TDS) Lab. Several other team members from both our research groups (TDS Lab & Curium) will join our collaboration during the KIEM project, furthering and intensivying this long-awaited LUMC/Curium-FWN/LIACS research collaboration. The KIEM project is concluded collaboratively by writing and publishing a research agenda that will be derived from our qualitative and quantitative outcomes.
METHODS: We will adhere to the Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Science (CRISP-DM) as our overarching research methodology, which has been the unchallenged best-practice process model for doing data science properly and reliably during its 25 years (Chapman et al., 2000). This six-phased cyclic process starts with two iterative phases: Domain understanding and Data understanding, followed by data preparation, data modelling, model evaluation and Deployment. In this KIEM project, we will primarily focus on the first two phases. Domain understanding of Frequency Therapy needs to start with uncovering the personal experiences of persons who have voluntarily and purposefully undergone treatment. We already have established future access to a private online community of 1000+ active MWO device users from which we are allowed to invite respondents. This qualitative research component will be led by Dr Laura Nooteboom. The second phase around Data understranding focuses on reproducible methods to MWO measure device outputs and treatment effect associations using MEDICOR and other signal measurement devices. This quantitative component will be led by Prof. Marco Spruit. The final phase which will be covered is Deployment, where we collaboratively will write and publish a mixed-methods Frequency Therapy research agenda derived from our qualitative and quantitative outcomes.
BUDGET: This KIEM grant is essential to kickstart this research collaboration between LUMC/Curium and FWN/LIACS, as we need to purchase a high-frequency therapy device with the appropriate accessories, as well as at least the MEDICOR measurement device to objectively assess potential treatment effects. The MWO device will be acquired from the Netherlands based company MediTech Europe. The MEDICOR device is manufactored by the company ROFES/ Altaim Ural Research and production Enterprises. Research will be performed by Marco Spruit and TDS team at no additional project costs.
OUTCOMES: Results will be threefold. First, we will objectively answer the question whether frequency therapy works. Second, if the first question can indeed be answered positively, we will provide novel insights into possible explanations into the underlying mechanisms, synthesising insights from scientific literature, practioners and our experiments. Third and finally, a precise research agenda for a potential followup RCT validation study will be published to further this research theme of frequency therapy and our new mixed-methods collaboration between LUMC/Curium and FWN/LIACS.