Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Brain Study Details

The good news is that I have a brain. The bad news is that it is not as sharp as it used to be! I blame certain medication. It's the only thing I can blame other than being older.

The brain study was very interesting. It will study people's brain function over time. I am number 197 of 1000 participants. It involves doing memory tests on the computer every three months, checking in with the study in person for more tests and a voluntary MRI, which I am not going to do.

It began with a series of words, which I had to repeat back to Cynthia as many as I could remember. First time, not many. She did this five times with me doing better each time. Then, she gave me a second series of words. Again, I had to repeat as many as I could back to her.

She then read two very detailed stories, one at a time. I had to repeat back as many details as I could remember.

 Afterwards, she asked me to give her as many words from the first series of words, again.

Then, paperwork. I am a visual learner so that was so much easier. I had to draw lines, like dot to dot, in this order: 1 a 2 b 3 c etc. There were a couple more of these types of timed tests.

She read a series of letters and numbers, which I had to put in number order first then letter order a-z. That was hard. No pencils allowed.

The peg board was brought out. Right hand first then left hand. It was timed. She told me that before MRIs, peg boards were used to determine in someone had a brain tumor or serious issues in their brain.

She then asked me to give her as many words from the first series, again.

She also asked me to repeat the stories with as much detail as possible.

We then went to the computer and did the exact same problems I had done, unobserved, at home. Dots flash in a certain order that I had to recreate. It got hairy as the number of dots increased. Then, I had to do them backwards. Oh my.

Cynthia asked me a series of questions about both lists of words at the beginning of the exercise. I was to say whether the word was on either list.

She also asked a series of questions about the two detailed stories and I had to answer yes or no.

After an hour and fifteen minutes, I was finished. Oh, I forgot, I had to give a good amount of saliva into a tube for DNA testing.

All in all, very interesting. I wish I had a better memory but I think the Lipitor had something to do with that.

Mom and I met for a nice lunch and two hours of conversation! We had not seen each other since Friday. I told her about the Audi dying, our Saturday visitors and Sunday chores. She told me all about her poker game, a bit of gossip, her work with her garden pots and baseball. We had a nice time even though my brain was tired!!!

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