Question: what tests do you do on the volunteers?

Amy Evans answered on 12 Jun 2012:

Hi there peten2!

When my volunteers come in to see me I first of all explain everything that is going to happen to them if they agree to take part in my research. I make sure that if they have any questions I answer them before we start. I measure their height, weight, around their waist and hips and the fat on the top of their arms so that we can find out how much body fat people have and where they carry it in their body.

Next we test how strong and co-ordinated people are; we see if they can stand up from a chair without using their arms and how fast they can do this 5 times in a row. This tests how strong their leg muscles are. We also test people’s balance by asking them to walk down a 6m course to see if they are more or less likely to fall over which might result in them breaking their bones.

We also have bone scanners which enable us to get pictures of people’s bones and find out how much bone people have in different parts of the body. One of our scanners gives us 3-D pictures so we can see right into the middle of the bones which is really cool! The scanners are conmpletely painless; volunteers either lie on a bed or put their hand/foot into the scanner and the scan is over in about ten minutes so it’s really quick and easy.

We take a small blood sample too so that we can investigate whether there are different hormones and chemicals in the blood that might explain what we find in the bones. Some people don’t like having their blood taken but all of our volunteers want to help us with our research so they are always very brave when it comes to this bit!