Research Study

For about five years now, I've been involved in a longitudinal bipolar research study at a local university. They take blood and study your genetics and ask many questions over several hours at this yearly visit. There are plenty of "games" to "play" that involve remembering grocery lists and finding patterns. At the first visit, they got a lot of history, like when you first hallucinated and what other symptoms may have shown up when.  During the year, about every other month, they send you a stack of papers to answer questions about how you've been feeling recently. Its very boring, but you get paid about $15 for about 15 minutes of work. They pay you when they see you at the end of the year office visit, including for that office visit. I'm not sure when they will find the results as the study has been going on for at least 5 years that I know of. They have off-shoot studies like teen children of people with bipolar. My younger son signed up for that. I hope its not too difficult for him or that he decides to quit mid-study. If I have more to say next week after my study visit, I will update this entry.