London, Aug 6 (IANS): Believe it or not, prayers can heal the sick, especially if the well-wisher is standing near the person he or she is praying for, says a team of researchers from Indiana University in the US.

Researchers say the vision and hearing of patients in their tests improved after healing practitioners prayed for them.

One elderly woman who could not see a person's hand when they held two fingers up in front of her face from a foot away is said to have been cured after a healer placed their hands over her eyes and prayed for less than one minute, reports the Daily Mail.

The tests were carried out by a team from Indiana University, led by religious studies professor Candy Gunther Brown, looking into 'proximal prayer' - or prayers near the patient.

Brown and her colleagues carried out the study as part of a research programme on the cultural significance and experience of spiritual healing practices, according to the Southern Medical Journal.

The team studied the impact of 'healers' on disadvantaged people with vision or hearing impairments in Mozambique and Brazil.

They evaluated rural Mozambican subjects who reported poor hearing and those who had failing sight, both before and after the subjects received such prayers.

Researchers found that some subjects with impaired hearing could hear better after prayers and other subjects had their tested vision improved.