View clinical trials related to Disease.
Filter by:There is an impressive and growing body of data suggesting that massage therapy is effective in decreasing some symptoms of pathological conditions as well as facilitating growth, reducing pain, increasing alertness, diminishing symptoms of depression and anxiety, and enhancing immune function. Preliminary studies suggest that massage therapy decreases symptoms of anxiety and depression, and lowers salivary cortisol levels in a wide array of childhood and adult neuropsychiatric disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder, attention-deficit-disorder hyperactivity, depression, bulimia and anorexia-nervosa. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by the presence of a constellation of signs and symptoms for at least 6 months in duration, with some type of functional disability or decrease in quality of life. The signs and symptoms of GAD include a myriad of somatic symptoms including muscle tension, headaches, backaches, fatigue, restlessness, insomnia, as well as psychological feelings of worry, anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed. Both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are effective in decreasing the signs and symptoms of GAD. Unfortunately, the vast majority of patients with GAD never receive adequate pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy. Therefore, the development of a complementary and alternative therapy that has demonstrated efficacy for GAD might be well received by patients. This study's goals are to investigate the efficacy of Swedish massage therapy vs. light touch therapy and better understand the biological effects of massage in patients with anxiety. Qualified participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups in which they will receive Swedish massage therapy twice per week for 12 weeks or Light Touch therapy twice per week for 6 weeks followed by Swedish massage therapy twice per week for the next 6 weeks. The total length of the study is 13 weeks, which includes a screening visit that takes about 3 hours and two therapy visits per week for 12 weeks that last about 1 hour each. Blood and urine will be collected at three of the visits. Compensation is up to $400 for completing the entire study.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by abnormalities in speech and communication, impaired social functioning and repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Oxytocin (OT) is peptide that is known for its peripheral effects on facilitating uterine contractions and milk let-down; however, studies, mainly with rodents and non-human primates, has found that OT is involved in affiliative behaviors, including sexual behavior, mother-infant and adult-adult pair-bond formation, separation distress, and other aspects of social attachment. Moreover, OT is known to play an important role in repetitive behaviors and stress reactivity. Given that repetitive behaviors and deficits in social interaction are core symptom domains of autism, and that OT is involved in the regulation of repetitive and affiliative behaviors, it is believed that OT may play a role in the etiology of autism. Moreover, preliminary data obtained by Hollander and colleagues suggests that OT may be of value in treating core autism symptoms. Specifically, synthetic oxytocin administered via intravenous infusion to adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) produced significant reductions in repetitive behaviors and facilitated social cognition/memory in a double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over laboratory challenge. Encouraged by these findings, the primary aim of this study is to investigate the safety and therapeutic efficacy of intranasal OT in treating repetitive behaviors and social functioning/cognitive deficits in adults with ASD. This research embraces a translational approach to develop a novel treatment for core ASD symptoms; given that there are currently no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved medication treatments for core ASD symptoms, this research addresses an important unmet need in the field. The goal of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of repeated Intranasal Oxytocin Treatment (INOT)administration in adults with ASD.
This study is designed to examine how much therapy is needed in order to make significant gains in knowledge and use of complex sentences. Students will be randomly placed in individual treatment sessions that take place either once or twice per week for nine weeks. All will receive the same type of treatment, which consists of a focused series of oral and written language activities. While it is anticipated that students in both groups will benefit from treatment, we hypothesize that the twice-weekly session frequency will have a significantly greater impact on level of performance and maintenance of skills after treatment.
The main objective of this study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of memantine (Namenda®) for cognitive and behavioral impairment in adults ages 18-50 years with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This is an exploratory, 12-week, pilot study, seeking to determine whether Namenda is efficacious and well tolerated in the treatment of adults with ASD. The study results will be used to generate hypotheses for a larger randomized controlled clinical trial with explicit hypotheses and sufficient statistical power.
The project's primary purpose is to test the hypothesis that oral administration of a low single dose of β-antagonist propranolol (40 mg) reduces pain sensitivity in patients with masticatory muscle pain.
The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of lithium and quetiapine for the treatment of individuals with bipolar disorder.
The primary aim of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of a systematic training of general affect regulation skills (ART) on the reduction of depressive symptom in individuals meeting criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD).
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a relatively common psychiatric condition, which is classically treated by antidepressant medications in combination with psychotherapies. However, both these conventional therapeutic approaches fail to sufficiently improve obsessive-compulsive symptoms in 20-30% of cases. From these considerations, deep brain stimulation (DBS), as a reversible and adjustable surgical procedure, has recently been introduced in the field of resistant OCD. DBS currently uses electrodes with four contacts on each lead, which are bilaterally implanted into the chosen brain structure. DBS consists of the delivery of a high-frequency current through the quadripolar electrodes connected to a battery powered pulse-generating device. Several clinical investigations have shown that DBS, primarily targeting either the ventral striatum (VS) or the subthalamic nucleus (STN), as brain sites of interest because of their particular involvement in the production of OCD symptoms, is able to produce an approximately 40% or greater reduction in clinical symptom intensity in severely chronic and incapacitating forms of OCD. These promising findings lead to propose a comparison of the efficacy, safety and tolerability of DBS choosing either the VS or STN as brain target by conducting a large controlled trial and including a medico-economic analysis for assessing the classical cost/efficacy ratio. In this way, the present study is expected to promote and highlight the importance of DBS, as an effective, safe, well-tolerated and cost-relevant surgical approach for the management of resistant OCD.
This study is conducted in Europe. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact on daily life for children new to using a growth hormone injection device.
Circadian rhythm disorders are a class of sleep disorders characterized by misalignment between the timing of sleep and the timing of rhythms driven by the biological clock. Light therapy can effectively treat these disorders, but the intensity and duration of light exposure required to do so has limited its practical use. In this study the investigators will test whether pre-exposure to dim light may enhance the response of the circadian system to light therapy. If so, this could result in shorter treatments that would have greater practical applications.