The testing day for the Nepal trip was interesting. I had to get to North London for 09:00 which was easy enough. However, I had looked at a Google map and satellite photo of the area on the web, based on postcode. Trying to go to the point indicated on the map put me in the middle of the large hospital rather than on the university site, which is where the testing was being held. As a result I arrived for the testing with absolutely no time to spare.
The testing started off with a presentation of the project, followed by going round a number of testing stations. None of the tests (except one) were particularly difficult - the intention was to obtain a sea level base line for each of the guinea pigs.
There were psychogical assessments of concentration, memory, verbal fluency, and other aspects of mental activity, that are likely to degrade in low oxygen situations. There were also various static metrics taken - height, weight, and skull measurements. Also retinal photographs and measurements of visual acuity.
Then on to the dynamic tests. These consisted of VO2 measurements and maximum air flow through the lungs and then the exercise bikes. Wired up with multiple sensors; for blood pressure, oxygen concentration in various parts of the body, heart activity. and (for all I know) seismic activity; the first test involved cycling for about 40 minutes at varying (low) workloads. The final dynamic test was maximum work load, again on the bike, with steadily increasing loads until one reached the physical maximum that one could do. This was the only difficult test.
Then a welcome lunch - in a typical hospital canteen. Final items in the testing day included the completion, with a paired volunteer of the daily diary one is expected to fill out - blood pressure readings, respiration rates, symptoms and feelings.
Many of these tests will be repeated every three or four days, at various increasing altitudes up to Everest Base camp.
All in all it was an fascinating day.
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