The Medical Research Council Annual Review – Medical Research Benefiting People, tells the stories of MRC scientists' many research achievements in 2007 to 8. It also describes the personal experiences of people who've been involved in medical research. MRC science writer Stacey Fitzsimons travelled the UK to meet everyone who features. Here three of the people she met share their stories.
Les Clarence had a stroke and lost the ability to swallow. He volunteered to take part in a trial to test a new device to help people swallow again. Les and his wife describe to Stacey what happened after his stroke.
LC: Well my face twisted; I've still not got the feeling back altogether on this side of my mouth. If I'm eating I lose things over there. LC's wife: And you lost your swallow which was why we were happy to come onto this research. LC: The speech therapist came to me one day, she was visiting me at home and she said if you're interested, Dr Shadeem is doing this research. LC's wife: So part of this research is to try and see if they can help people whose swallow's been adversely affected by a stroke. LC: The reason I volunteered was if it benefits other people; it might not help me but maybe it's part of a treatment for somebody. Dr Shadeem Handy is one of the researchers involved in the swallowing trial that Les has volunteered for.
SH: One of the things that we've been fortunate to have in Salford is the regional neuroscience centre and coupled to that the Stroke Research Network is based here as well, so we have I would say fairly premier league facilities for stroke here, we have an acute stroke unit, a chronic stroke unit, obviously we have all of the rehabilitation that you would expect from a place like this, but on top of that it's coupled to a strong academic unit that also has an additive effect to delivering a good service for patients. And we have to be grateful for Les because I mean he's been extremely cooperative and one of the things that you find when you're dealing with stroke as a condition is that patients are often unwell, they're often tired, they're often elderly and frail and all of those things mean that when you approach a patient for what is effectively a research study as oppose to standard clinical care and tell them about it, they can often think of it as an additional strain and that can have an effect which makes them want to perhaps say well you know, “I'd rather just stay in my bed and not be involved.” So patients like Les who right from the word go were up for it and said “look you can do anything on me as long as it's safe because I want to see people who've got stroke generally get better.” And it's extremely good for us because it then means that we can experiment, we can try and improve our techniques and ultimately get data that will form the basis for newer therapies which will become standard care in maybe five years time. Retired journalist David Ward has taken part in the national survey of health and development since his birth in 1946. Here he talks about what it's meant for him. DW: It's less intense over the last twenty, thirty years, but certainly as a child from the time I can remember at primary school and then through secondary school, the questions and consultations and inspections and medicals and things seemed to be pretty frequent and they were quite good simply because they got you out of classes. I always enjoyed it, I never ever resented it. I think the biggest thing to me was that there was this dossier being gathered on me and I've always been too lazy to keep a diary for more than about three days and so you had this official record of yourself, not day to day but certainly at certain points in your life, incredibly detailed and in a piece I wrote for The Guardian a long time ago and I referred to a health visitor coming when I was four and reporting that I'd had porridge and bread and dripping for breakfast and was wearing a blouse. Well perhaps naturally I've eradicated from my memory the fact that I was wearing a blouse but just to know that that was going on was quite interesting. And a lot of these things are based on external views of me, either by nurses or health visitors or teachers, when I was at school, or academics when I was at University. So there is this alternative version of me that I find very intriguing and I want to get my hands on. When you think that it has been going sixty two years I think it's quite extraordinary. And also I think the other thing apart from I've been talking about the personal benefits, that you do, when you look at the record of the books which have been published, the papers that have been published, the research that's been done, that we've contributed to so many bits of medical research which probably have been quite useful. So my life has not been in vain and if I've contributed to the world's knowledge on bed wetting, well fine. And certainly things like smoking and what I'm intrigued by now is this concept of child as father of the man, that what they're clearly looking at is aging and the impact of childhood development on aging and the kind of beginnings that you had and how they impact on your ending. When I was thirty odd, thirty one, that they gave my daughter the verbal reasoning test they'd given me at eight, but also what was more intriguing was that she did better than me. Now you want to know is that nature, is that nurture, is that her mum's genes coming into play? But I found that really quite interesting that over a generation that there can be those improvements. Yes and they can cover my funeral and they'll all be able to work as we all die off, what happens then? You can download the annual review from the MRC website now and in it you can read about Olivia and Isabella, five year old twins whose blood samples enabled a breakthrough in understanding leukaemia. The work of Emma Brown, a nurse in the tropical diseases hospital in London and the experiences of Amanda Gill, a woman who has had two heart attacks in the past year, all of this alongside MRC research achievements. The annual report and accounts is also ready to be downloaded if you're interested in reading that too. For more visit mrc.ac.uk LC: Les Clarence SH: Dr Shadeem Handy DW: David Ward
