Living with muscle weakness - what are the most important issues for research?

Members of the AGE Research Group recently met with a group of research participants who have muscle weakness (sarcopenia) for the first in a series of online workshops to discuss priorities for research. 

The workshop participants were recruited to take part via the SarcNet study led by Prof Miles Witham.

Prof Witham comments: “The insights that we gather from these discussions will help us to shape our future sarcopenia research”

We were delighted with the levels of interest we received, with five participants joining us for the first workshop. Hosted online via Zoom, it gave us the opportunity to hear how muscle weakness affects individuals in their day-to-day lives, the types of treatment they feel we should be researching, and what improvements they would hope these treatments would lead to.

One participant commented: “It's all about quality of life, it’s no good reaching some grand old age, if you've got no quality of life.”

Another participant highlighted the everyday issues that they experience: “Opening jars is a common everyday problem and walking strength. I used to be able to walk reasonably fast and now everyone overtakes me.”

Following on from this successful first event, we look forward to hosting a number of further workshops to build on our discussions. To hear more about our research including upcoming public events, you can follow us on Twitter @NewcastleAGE and check our website for further information.

Last modified: Mon, 25 Oct 2021 09:35:24 BST