A while ago I took part in a study of fatigue and MS. It was at the local VA hospital, and I made real money--and learned things as well.
Getting there and back can be difficult but I'm going to do this again.
I'm now enrolled in another study, lasting 5 and a half months and involving at least 4-6 trips there. It's centrally located but is such a vast place that the van drivers have trouble finding their passengers, and often I have to wait for long stretches of time in the lobby.
Part of this study will be at OHSU, which is near the VA hospital and probably just as vast a place, judging from what I've heard about it.
I might even be given a yoga mat and strap if I'm chosen for one of the intervention groups. I'm not sure what a yoga strap is but I'll find out. I've had only limited experience with yoga and wonder if I'd be able to get up from a mat.
Picking me up off the mat will have to be the study researchers' problem but that's what they're there for, I guess!
The study is meant to provide stretching exercises to see if they help MS spasticity.
I wasn't sure I could document the spasticity since I've never discussed it with a doctor. Then along came the records from the neuro I've been going to (not very often) in the last 6 years, and spasticity is there in writing. So the doctor observed it.
I don't know if the research people will want that documentation but in case they do, I have it.
I've been doing stretching exercises for years now and they do seem to help me to limber up and be less stiff. I'm really interested in taking part in this study, which promises to be more active. In the other one we mostly sat around, watched videos, filled out questionnaires, and had discussions. We did a few 25-foot-walking tests but that was the only real activity. Since it was a fatigue study, maybe it was assumed that we were all too fatigued to do anything but sit.
Most of the participants were people who looked as if nothing was wrong with them. A couple of people besides myself came with wheelchairs or walkers.
Getting there and back can be difficult but I'm going to do this again.
I'm now enrolled in another study, lasting 5 and a half months and involving at least 4-6 trips there. It's centrally located but is such a vast place that the van drivers have trouble finding their passengers, and often I have to wait for long stretches of time in the lobby.
Part of this study will be at OHSU, which is near the VA hospital and probably just as vast a place, judging from what I've heard about it.
I might even be given a yoga mat and strap if I'm chosen for one of the intervention groups. I'm not sure what a yoga strap is but I'll find out. I've had only limited experience with yoga and wonder if I'd be able to get up from a mat.
Picking me up off the mat will have to be the study researchers' problem but that's what they're there for, I guess!
The study is meant to provide stretching exercises to see if they help MS spasticity.
I wasn't sure I could document the spasticity since I've never discussed it with a doctor. Then along came the records from the neuro I've been going to (not very often) in the last 6 years, and spasticity is there in writing. So the doctor observed it.
I don't know if the research people will want that documentation but in case they do, I have it.
I've been doing stretching exercises for years now and they do seem to help me to limber up and be less stiff. I'm really interested in taking part in this study, which promises to be more active. In the other one we mostly sat around, watched videos, filled out questionnaires, and had discussions. We did a few 25-foot-walking tests but that was the only real activity. Since it was a fatigue study, maybe it was assumed that we were all too fatigued to do anything but sit.
Most of the participants were people who looked as if nothing was wrong with them. A couple of people besides myself came with wheelchairs or walkers.
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