Recruitment of people over 60 for research, how to go about it

spotsanddots

I'm 4th yr undergrad and for my thesis i will possibly need to recruit people over 60 from the Dublin area.
Has anyone done this before?
How did you go about getting recruits?

imported_guy

this will depend ENTIRELY on the nature of "research", if its filling in a survey, go to an old folks home and ask them if they will let you survey the old folks and then you could go about asking the old folks themselves if they'd like to fill out a survey

spotsanddots

there will be experimental techniques carried out on them so they will have to come in to the lab on 2 occasions for 2 hrs..it can be difficult to find subjects of this age group

imported_guy

spotsanddots wrote: »

there will be experimental techniques carried out on them so they will have to come in to the lab on 2 occasions for 2 hrs..it can be difficult to find subjects of this age group

again, this depends entirely on the "experimental techniques" if its something like behavioral observations or testing their cognitive abilities, which can be done on site at the old folks home, or may even be able to arrange for them to come to the lab, it would be easier than... say if you wanted them to swallow pills or do something physical (say testing their 40 yard dash abilities), then we'd be getting into physical/clinical test/trial territory and basically that is something most college wont be able/willing to afford for someone who is only doing this for an undergrad thesis as it may come with a cost. (insurance/supplies/food etc comes to mind)

lonestargirl

imported_guy wrote: »

again, this depends entirely on the "experimental techniques" if its something like behavioral observations or testing their cognitive abilities, which can be done on site at the old folks home, or may even be able to arrange for them to come to the lab, it would be easier than... say if you wanted them to swallow pills or do something physical (say testing their 40 yard dash abilities), then we'd be getting into physical/clinical test/trial territory and basically that is something most college wont be able/willing to afford for someone who is only doing this for an undergrad thesis as it may come with a cost. (insurance/supplies/food etc comes to mind)

+ethics committee should really approve anything like this. I presume you are still in the process of designing this experiment and are aware of these kinds of obligations.

Does the profile of the group matter, i.e. if the all ended up being women who were overwieght with high blood pressure? Getting an 'independent' sample of people is more difficult than you might think.

spotsanddots

It has been put forward to an ethics committee and will involve TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)