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Giving Back Through Participation: Maddie’s Clinical Trial Experience
In this article, we report on Maddie’s experiences as a participant in a healthy volunteers study about hives and cold weather. As someone who also works in the field of research herself, Maddie fully understands how important it is for research institutes to run clinical trials to further gain knowledge about illnesses and other conditions that affect the human body. According to Maddie, this understanding pretty much led to her decision to participate in this particular clinical trial that aims to determine a normal response (also called the ‘control’) to cold.A ‘Healthy’ Volunteer Study
The kind of study that Maddie participated in is one that is for healthy volunteers. This means participants must generally be in the pink of health and should pass certain requirements that clinical trials state, i.e. body mass index, age, weight and others. In this particular healthy volunteer study, it was stated that participants ought to have no allergies to pollen or food as well.
A Warm and Assuring Environment
Maddie’s clinical trial experience took place in what was a clean, sterile room filled with medical equipment and what one might usually find in a doctor’s office. It was warm, well lit and assuredly dispelled any notions of clinical trial environments having a cold and detached vibe. Maddie is assisted through the entire procedure by the facilitating researchers, nurses and other assistants at the center. Interaction between Maddie and the people conducting the clinical trial was nothing short of warm and responsive, replete with friendly banter and an earnest concern over her comfort and well being.
The Task at Hand
To gather information necessary for the trial, Maddie had to undergo three things: hold her arm in a bucket of ice cold water for five whole minutes, have one of the nurses collect from her a blood sample and being observed for any physical responses shortly after removing her arm from the tub of ice cold water. The first task had the objective of searching for signs of hives while she described what she is feeling. The blood sample collected from her is meant to determine how a normal response will compare to an abnormal on. The third task is data gathering on her physical responses. All of these will help people understand how hives develop and ultimately lead to new information that will help clinical researchers understand how to control such a condition.
Simplicity and Comfort Assured
The tasks Maddie had to undergo in the clinical trial were fairly simple, endurable and most importantly – will bring a large amount of vital information necessary to learn more about a common condition such as hives. Maddie’s experience of participating in the clinical trial leads one to the conclusion that such practices emphasize not just the end result – which is information, new medication and scientific breakthroughs – but also how well participants are treated during the entire course of the trial. The research team that worked on the trial stresses the need for normal volunteers like Maddie, as their participation provides important information on what really does happen when they use average persons as points of comparison.
