View clinical trials related to Mental Disorders.
Filter by:The health care needs of people with serious mental illness are exacerbated by ethnic health disparities. Latinos with serious mental illness show significant health problems compared to other ethnic groups. Therefore, this project is to develop a meaningful peer-navigator program for Latinos with serious mental illness using community-based participatory research (CBPR). Investigators are currently working with seven Hispanic/Latinos with a mental illness that have formed a Consumer Research Team (CRT) that will guide this project. This project will identify and define the problem by conducting a mixed methods research thru qualitative interviews with various stakeholders defined by the investigator's CRT group. The qualitative findings will then be cross-validated in a quantitative survey by 100 Hispanic/Latinos with mental illness. This information will then be used to design an intervention using an integrated care model for Peer-Navigators. Feasibility, accessibility , acceptability and impact of the peer-navigator program will be then evaluated in a randomized control trial (RCT) with 100 Latinos with serious mental illness who will complete measures of physical health, mental health, service use and engagement at baseline, 4, 8, and 12 months. Investigators expect to show physical health improvement with the greater engagement observed in the peer navigator group. Investigators expect a similar improvement in mental health and quality of life as physical health concerns are diminished.
The goal of this project is to evaluate an innovative psychosocial intervention package that will incorporate evidence-based treatment strategies to target the affective-motivational deficits, negative expectancies, and behavioral skills deficits that are central to the maintenance of negative symptoms. The intervention - called EnCoRE (Engaging in Community Roles and Experiences) - will include strategies aimed at teaching Veterans with schizophrenia and negative symptoms ways to (1) overcome deficits in anticipatory pleasure, (2) increase intrinsic motivation for goal-directed activities, (3) reduce expectancies for failure, and (4) perform skillfully in new social situations, all of which can impact implementation of new skills and behaviors. Rather than develop a new set of intervention strategies, the investigators will include within EnCoRE evidence-based strategies for these treatment domains. In addition, the investigators will collect qualitative information both from Veterans concerning their perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, and barriers to participation in EnCoRE, as well as from a sample of mental health providers who work with Veterans with schizophrenia and negative symptoms, in order to inform a larger scale implementation trial should EnCoRE prove effective here.
Mental illness is often severe, chronic and difficult to treat. The sleep disturbance commonly experienced by individuals with a severe mental illness reduces capacity to function and contributes to key symptoms. This study seeks to determine if an intervention to improve sleep can improve functioning and reduce symptoms and impairment. We will conduct this study in community mental health centers to ensure that the results contribute to closing the worrisome gap between research and practice and to ensure that the findings are generalizable to the real world.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent form of dementia, causing high level of disability with elevated social costs. Alternative solutions to the standard pharmacological therapies have been studied in order to reduce the use of medications that frequently generates side effects and worsen patients' quality of life. A recent alternative treatment for AD is the Environmental Ecological Therapy (EET) that, with the use of therapeutic gardens, seems to reduce behavioral disorders (BD). However, the effectiveness of this approach is still mater of debate. Therefore, the aim of this trial will be to analyze the effects of EET, in people with severe AD.
The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility of a modification of CET (Cognitive Enhancement Therapy) to address symptomatic and functional difficulties associated with Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR). Cognition for Learning and for Understanding Everyday Social Situations (CLUES) is designed to improve cognitive functioning (e.g., memory, attention, planning, etc.) in order to improve school, work, and social functioning. CLUES includes the following: 1. Computerized cognitive remediation ("exercises") to improve cognition. 2. Social-cognitive skills group designed to teach participants to act wisely in social situations. 3. Individual coaching sessions designed to enhance translation of skills learned from computer exercises and the group into real life. CLUES is based on Hogarty and Greenwald's Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), which was designed for treating individuals with schizophrenia. Research on CET for individuals with schizophrenia has found that CET appears to have helped participants improve cognition and social and work functioning. This study will investigate the feasibility of CLUES for young people who are showing signs of clinical risk for psychosis. Part 1: Preliminary open label trial of CLUES (n=8) to examine preliminary evidence of target engagement (change in cognition and social cognition), to refine assessment and recruitment approaches, to further optimize the treatment manual, and to ascertain feasibility and tolerability. Part 2: Preliminary randomized controlled trial of CLUES vs supportive therapy (ST) + computer games to explore preliminary evidence of efficacy of CLUES vs. the control treatment (n=30).
The investigators programme of research will evaluate an existing physical health care screening intervention with the aim of helping Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPN) to improve the physical health wellbeing of people with a SMI. This pilot clustered randomised controlled trial aims to establish the potential efficacy and acceptability of the Chinese Health Improvement Profile (CHIP) in improving the physical health of people with severe mental illness.
This purpose of this study is to adapt, implement and test the ability of a sophisticated point-of-care electronic health record-based clinical decision support that identifies and prioritizes all available evidence-based treatment options to reduce cardiovascular risk in patients with serious mental illness.
In this study the investigators will seek to improve our understanding of how positive and negative valence systems, cognition, and arousal/interoception are inter-related in disorders of mood, substance use, and eating behavior. The investigators will recruit 1000 individuals and use a wide range of assessment tools, neuroimaging measures, blood and microbiome collections and behavioral tasks to complete the baseline and follow-up study visits. Upon completion, the investigators aim to have robust and reliable dimensional measures that quantify these systems and a set of assessments that should be recommended as a clinical tool to enhance outcome prediction for the clinician and assist in determining who will likely benefit from what type of intervention.
Psychosis is a mental health problem that causes people to perceive or interpret things differently from those around them, often involving hallucinations or delusions. Psychosis and schizophrenia are common disorders which predominantly affect younger adults. Recently, the investigators discovered that 5-10% of people with psychosis have antibodies in the blood that are capable of targeting the surface of brain cells, specific to the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor or voltage gated potassium channel complex, which the investigators believe may be causing the problem. Those positive for antibodies may have a problem with their immune system and this may prevent their brain from working normally. This trial aims to test the feasibility of removing or reducing the antibodies in patients' blood, using immunotherapy, and see if this improves symptoms of psychosis. Immunotherapy in this feasibility study will involve giving all patients steroid tablets and half of them will also receive a drug called "intravenous immunoglobulin" whereas the other half will have a procedure called "plasma exchange". The feasibility study is designed to identify which method of immunotherapy is most suitable for use in this patient population. Results from this will inform on the methodology used for a proposed larger randomised control trial.
The Wellness Incentives and Navigation (WIN) project is designed to help improve health self-management and reduce the incidence and consequences of chronic disease among non-elderly adult Medicaid Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries. WIN targets SSI beneficiaries with behavioral health (mental health and substance abuse) diagnoses. Research demonstrates that these individuals are more likely to suffer chronic physical co-morbidities, experience debilitating chronic illnesses earlier in life and have elevated healthcare costs. WIN uses person-centered wellness planning and navigation facilitated by trained, professional health Navigators, dedicated specifically to the WIN project, who use Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques, and a personal wellness account. Participants with more serious mental illnesses will be offered additional support in the form of Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP) to enable them to take full advantage of person-centered wellness planning.