sentences:  Minimisation addresses this problem by calculating the imbalance within each factor should the patient be allocated to a particular treatment group.The various imbalances are added together to give the overall imbalance in the study.The treatment group that would minimise the imbalance can be chosen directly, or a random element may be added (perhaps allocating a higher chance to the groups that will minimise the imbalance, or perhaps only allocating a chance to groups that will minimise the imbalance).