ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Therapeutic effect

Therapeutic effect means the good result you get from using medicine or therapy to make you feel better when something is wrong with your body. It's like when you have a boo-boo on your knee and your mom puts a band-aid on it to make it feel better. The medicine or therapy is like the band-aid, but it's not always something you can see.

When a doctor gives you medicine, they do it for a reason - to help you get better. The medicine can help you feel better in lots of ways, like making you stop coughing, feel less pain, or be less anxious. The therapeutic effect is what happens when the medicine starts working and you start feeling better.

Some medicines can have side effects, which means they can sometimes make you feel worse than before you started taking the medicine. For example, some medicines can make you feel sleepy, dizzy or give you an upset stomach. But if the medicine is working as it should without many side effects, then it has a good therapeutic effect.

So when you go to the doctor and they give you medicine, trust them when they say it is for your own good and will help you feel better!