Type 1 Diabetic Participants needed for experiment

Psych_Student

I'm an undergraduate student at Trinity College Dublin, urgently seeking participants for my final year project on cognitive impairment in Type 1 Diabetes.

What I'm looking for:

20 people with type 1 diabetes (usually childhood onset), aged 18 - 30 approx.

My experiment is interesting, involving a wide variety of puzzles.

Testing will take place Monday - Friday, throughout the end of January and all of February. With the latest slots beginning at 4pm.

If you know ANYONE with Type 1 diabetes (friend, sibling etc), please let them know about this experiment.

Cheers,
Gareth

The_Conductor

Is it strictly 30- i.e. my wife is 33, and a work colleague 31?

Cheers,

Shane

Psych_Student

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately I think it is pretty strict, I'll ask my supervisor if I can stretch it a bit and get back to you.

CathyMoran

I think that I would also be a challenge (my husband is Smccarrick), as I am suffering from chemo brain also Let us know if you can stretch the rules a bit - if not, have you tried the Diabetes Federation of Ireland http://www.diabetes.ie/Website/content/default.aspx Good luck with your experiment, would be curious to see what you find out, certainly the title is intreaging.

Psych_Student

Cathy, unfortunately Diabetes Ireland have just got back to me to let me know they won't pass on my details, I'm getting back to them but don't hold out much hope, hence the desperate appeal!

robinph

I'd have thought there would be enough students for you to pick on within the right age range within Trinity if you were able to pursuade them to make themselves known to you. Otherwise, if your age range were expanded upwards a bit more then I could potentially be another candidate for you.

Psych_Student

robinph wrote: »

I'd have thought there would be enough students for you to pick on within the right age range within Trinity if you were able to pursuade them to make themselves known to you. Otherwise, if your age range were expanded upwards a bit more then I could potentially be another candidate for you.

Robin,
Statistically - it's pretty unlikely I'll find enough T1DM participants in Trinity, I'm postering tomorrow so I should find out then; but with only 7k approx patients in the country I'm not counting my chickens. Currently checking with my supervisor whether I can fudge the ages a bit - as a couple of people have said the same thing to me, can I ask how old you are? Thanks a million for getting back to me

The_Conductor

I agree with you- Type 1 is not all that common, that vast majority of diabetics (by and far) are Type 2s.

An alternate possibility might be to contact the diabetic clinics and ask for permission to put up a discrete poster there detailing your study and asking for participants. Between Vincents and Loughlinstown- you should get a reasonable response (if you weren't getting enough people- you could expand outwards to other clinics).

Just a suggestion. Ps- the diabetic nurse at Loughlinstown is particularly approachable.

robinph

Don't know what the "population" of Trinity is but I thought that it was something along the lines of there being about 1 in every 100 people having type 1 diabetes, cannot remember where I got that number stuck in my head from though.

That 7k for the whole of Ireland sounds like a pretty low number though.

The_Conductor

The rate would be a little closer to just under 0.5% (according to the VHI website here)

robinph

That would then give 20,000 in Ireland which sounds slightly more likely than the 7k.

The_Conductor

robinph wrote: »

That would then give 20,000 in Ireland which sounds slightly more likely than the 7k.

Sounds about right. Note: not all of these may be aware that they are type 1 diabetic- or taking appropriate medication/treatment/insulin etc.

tbh

Psych_Student wrote: »

I'm an undergraduate student at Trinity College Dublin, urgently seeking participants for my final year project on cognitive impairment in Type 1 Diabetes.

What I'm looking for:

20 people with type 1 diabetes (usually childhood onset), aged 18 - 30.

My experiment is interesting, involving a wide variety of puzzles.

If you know ANYONE with Type 1 diabetes (friend, sibling etc), please let them know about this experiment.

Cheers,
Gareth

hmmm. It wouldn't have killed you to pm one of the mods to check that this was ok before you posted. I understand that your intentions are probably good, but we've no idea who you are or what you want. Still, my fellow mods seem keen so I'll say nothing

Psych_Student

tbh wrote: »

hmmm. It wouldn't have killed you to pm one of the mods to check that this was ok before you posted. I understand that your intentions are probably good, but we've no idea who you are or what you want. Still, my fellow mods seem keen so I'll say nothing

That's silly, my studentship and project can be confirmed with a phonecall - I'll supply my student number and name to any concerned mod. Trinity colleges psychology department is publically listed.

G.

tbh

that's not the point. Why do you think the DFI won't pass on your details to anyone? You're coming in to an established community - to which you've contributed exactly nothing, btw - and you're asking people to take you on your word. I'm not saying I don't believe you, and I'm not saying you're trying to pull a fast one, but it's accepted protocol on these boards that if you want to do something like this, you check and make sure it's ok first. It's good manners, if nothing else.

tallaght01

presumably he didn't know it was accepted protocol. No harm done, though.

psych_student what is the actual study you're doing?

The_Conductor

Psych_Student wrote: »

That's silly, my studentship and project can be confirmed with a phonecall - I'll supply my student number and name to any concerned mod. Trinity colleges psychology department is publically listed.

G.

Its not silly really- while I do know where you are coming from, and indeed probably know several of your lecturers, it is normal protocol to PM/e-mail the moderators of a particular forum prior to posting something like this. I don't have any issue with what you're doing- indeed when I was a student I did similar for my thesis, but what tbh means- is that you should have approached one (or more) of us first with what you were proposing and we would have gotten back to you letting you know whether it was appropriate or not, and perhaps offering you some tips or suggestions (as I did on this thread). Its a courtesy as much as anything else- but it also does weed out some totally inappropriate material which pops up from time to time.

I would be grateful if you could detail what you have in mind- and the usual would be to make the results of your study available to all who volunteer to assist in the matter.

Shane

tbh

exactly - the last time a smiliar request was made, I actually made it a sticky.

Psych_Student

Listen, apologies for breaking the convention. I was not aware of this point, and I don't think it appears in your guidelines. I'm not a heavy user of internet boards, and am turning to this an other sites as a last minute measure - and unfortunately I'm unfamiliar with the norms surrounding their use.

Regarding more details of my study, here's a brief overview I've written for an ethics application - it's not necessarily that informative outside the context of the literature.

'Evidence has accrued against the cognitive deficits which can develop in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) being the result of hypogylcemia or hypoglycemic coma, as was once believed. In fact moderate hypoglycemia (which frequently occurs as a side effect of the insulin treatment of T1DM) – whilst unpleasant, may act as a protective factor for cognitive performance.

Emerging models of cognitive impairment and morphological damage in T1DM implicate neurotoxic Hyperglycemia; Early Onset Diabetes (EOD), typified by repeated severe and persistent hyperglycemia, interacting with stress; insulin disregulation, and vascular damage created by chronic hyperglycemia.

A history of hyperglycemia is difficult to measure, as HbA1c levels are both infrequently recorded, and subject to distortion by unrecorded nightly variations in glucose level.

No set methodology exists to measure cognitive impairment in T1DM. A variety of factors (including age at onset, duration of illness and diabetic retinopathy), may interact to influence the development of such impairment.

A need exists to develop and normalise a neurocognitive battery suitable for this population. Such a battery could in the future, work to more accurately measure the causes and specific nature of cognitive deficits in T1DM, and act to alleviate some aspects of Fear of Hypoglycemia (FOH), which can negatively effect the management of this disease.

The proposed study endeavours to apply specific, targeted, neurocognitive tests, in order to compare cognitive performance in a comparison group of twenty adult T1DM patients (aged 18 – 30) vs matched controls; taking into account gycemic history / seizure history / insulin regime / diet and a variety of other salient factors. '

As with all Psychology studies carried out in Trinity, anonymized results will be available to all participants on request. Additionally, all experiments will be carried out on the college campus either in the psychology department or the institute of neuroscience. In this case I'll also publish my thesis on my website (as I've previously done with a good deal of essays and the like) - http://www.dbspin.com. I should emphasise that this is an undergraduate thesis, and as such represents an exploratory study - no findings should be taken as definitive.

tallaght01

Can I ask a few questions?

What is the cognitive impairment that is seen amongst T1DM patients? What's the extent of it? and what's the prevalence?

Presumably when you say "Evidence has accrued against the cognitive deficits which can develop in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) being the result of hypogylcemia or hypoglycemic coma, as was once believed", you don't mean that hypoglycaemia or diabetic coma can't cause cognitive impairment? Because they very obviously do.

Presumably you're talking aout some kind of low-level cognitive impairment?

As an aside, in the world of neonates, we often get kids who are profoundly hypoglycaemic for hours and hours upon end, without developing long term sequelie.

Psych_Student

smccarrick wrote: »

The rate would be a little closer to just under 0.5% (according to the VHI website here)

Roche et al, 2002, assessed T1DM incidence in children under 15 in the Republic of Ireland, revealing a directly standardised (corrected for age and gender) incidence rate of 16.3 per 100,000 per year. This compares to a 1988 incidence rate of 6.8 (Metcalfe & Baum, 1991), and a 1973 incidence rate of 4.47 (Bloom et al, 1975); putting Ireland in the high bracket of diabetes incidence (10 - 19.99 / 100,000 per year), as characterized by the WHO’s Multinational Project for Childhood Diabetes (Karvonen et al, 2000).

The CIA worldbook put the ROI population at 4,109,086 circa 2007, that's about 2 - 4k cases in the republic. I overestimated earlier. Apologies if my math is off.

Psych_Student

tallaght01 wrote: »

Can I ask a few questions?

What is the cognitive impairment that is seen amongst T1DM patients? What's the extent of it? and what's the prevalence?

Presumably when you say "Evidence has accrued against the cognitive deficits which can develop in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) being the result of hypogylcemia or hypoglycemic coma, as was once believed", you don't mean that hypoglycaemia or diabetic coma can't cause cognitive impairment? Because they very obviously do.

Presumably you're talking aout some kind of low-level cognitive impairment?

As an aside, in the world of neonates, we often get kids who are profoundly hypoglycaemic for hours and hours upon end, without developing long term sequelie.

I'm not a doctor, so you'll have to explain the term sequelie - but the type of deficits found in previous studies vary widely, one reason for the project in question. A single episode of hypoglycemic coma does not usually result in permanent cognitive deficit in adult onset T1DM (Kramer et al, 1998), although clearly serious childhoods incidents of hypoglycemia may have an immediate cognitive effect. Deficits found by previous studies include IQ, hippocampal function / LTM, information processing speed, self monitoring, executive function, sustained and visual attention, spacial reasoning, psychomotor speed, cognitive flexibility.

As I say, they vary widely, as does the suggested aetiology. Moderate hypoglycemia might actually be a protective factor. I'm not the best person to summarise the research - one good recent study is 'Predictors of cognitive impairment in type 1 diabetes' by Brismar et al (doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2007.08.002).

robinph

Psych_Student wrote: »

... incidence rate of 16.3 per 100,000 per year.

Wouldn't the "per year" part of that mean 16.3 new cases within that age group diagnosed each year?

That would give about 245 out of every 100,000 15 year olds, and of course to nicely mess up those numbers I was not diagnosed until my mid twenties.

Psych_Student

robinph wrote: »

Wouldn't the "per year" part of that mean 16.3 new cases within that age group diagnosed each year?

That would give about 245 out of every 100,000 15 year olds, and of course to nicely mess up those numbers I was not diagnosed until my mid twenties.

Not sure, 'per year' seems to be used interchangeably with per head of population in the incidence statistics.

Wisheress

If the TCD ethics board knew that you were using the internet to recruit patients, they might not be too happy? I understand you may have the right reasons at heart but ethical laws are there for a reason.

When you fill in any ethics applications, there are specific rules about where you will be recruiting from. Having filled out many of these in the past, I know it is a painful, lengthy procedure but ultimately it safeguards patients. If TCD ethics have approved this method of recruitment for your specific project, I fully withdraw my comments and advise you to post your ethics approval on here. If I am wrong I commend you on your inventiveness and wish you well with your project.

Otherwise you are seriously breaching their rules and your project should be terminated. I admire everyone's enthusiasm here to take part in this project (and a very good project it might be) but ask people to remember that for your own sake, you should make sure that any project you participate in has had recruitment performed through the right channels. It never ceases to amaze me how generous patients are with their time and energy in volunteering for projects that may help others. We never would have got anywhere in the science world were it not for that generosity.

Psych_Student

Wisheress wrote: »

If TCD ethics have approved this method of recruitment for your specific project, I fully withdraw my comments and advise you to post your ethics approval on here. If I am wrong I commend you on your inventiveness and wish you well with your project.

Otherwise you are seriously breaching their rules and your project should be terminated. I admire everyone's enthusiasm here to take part in this project (and a very good project it might be) but ask people to remember that for your own sake, you should make sure that any project you participate in has had recruitment performed through the right channels. It never ceases to amaze me how generous patients are with their time and energy in volunteering for projects that may help others. We never would have got anywhere in the science world were it not for that generosity.

Though I find the tone of your message extremely aggressive and inappropriate, I'm responding here with a direct quote from my ethics application approved by the research ethics committee, to ease the worries of anyone reading your message.

Participant Group

"1 & 2). Student diabetics and controls, and non student diabetics (18-30yrs) recruited through advertisements / contact with the diabetes federation of Ireland. No 'clinical groups' as defined below, but rather an outpatient group. No hospital patient groups will be tested."

I am, to the best of my knowledge, in complete accordance with the relevant rules (including the PSI code of professional ethics, revised version 2000, section 4), and as previously stated have been granted ethical approval.

Update: I've double checked with the head of the Psychology Department Ethics Committee this morning, and confirmed that this method of advertising my experiment is fine.

Further, I have engaged in a great deal of discussion regarding my project here - a project I'm actively engaged in right now. As I begin testing tomorrow, Monday 28th, this is more extra curricular activity than I have time for right now. If anyone has any further questions, or would like to participate please feel free to call me for elaboration. My phone number is available on request - as I've been informed that I cannot post it here.

Kind regards,
Gareth Stack

tallaght01

Hi Gareth, I've edited out your phone number.

We generally don't like people posting up their personal numbers here.

You can ask people to PM you, and then you can exchange numbers in private, or whatever. But we'd rather you didn't post them on the thread, if that's ok.

Psych_Student

tallaght01 wrote: »

Hi Gareth, I've edited out your phone number.

We generally don't like people posting up their personal numbers here.

You can ask people to PM you, and then you can exchange numbers in private, or whatever. But we'd rather you didn't post them on the thread, if that's ok.

That's no problem, I've amended my post, thanks.