View clinical trials related to Parkinson Disease.
Filter by:The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, efficacy and the value of providing care to individuals with Parkinson disease directly into their homes. The specific aims are: 1. To demonstrate the feasibility of conducting remote evaluations of patients with Parkinson disease nationally; 2. To measure the impact of remote care on each patient's ability to improve his or her quality of life (QoL) and better manage his or her Parkinson disease; and 3. To assess the long-term acceptability to patients in receiving ongoing care remotely via telemedicine.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is defined as a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects the patient's mobility, balance and cognition. Tremor, slowed movements, and rigidity are physical symptoms which contribute to postural and gait abnormalities seen in many PD patients. Other symptoms include loss of balance and restricted range of motion, increasing the risk of falling. Osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) is a form of manual treatment provided by osteopathic physicians. This form of treatment aims to help decrease muscle spasms and improve joint range of motion and movement. We are proposing a pilot study to investigate the impact of OMM on balance, motor function, and falling in PD patients. We are also going to screen for serum biomarker changes to investigate the potential effects of OMM. Our research team and institution have experience in providing osteopathic care and physical rehabilitation for PD patients. In this study, balance and motor function will be evaluated for each subject throughout the study period. We will also keep track of the number of falls. Balance will be measured using Sensory Organization Test (SOT) and motor function will be measured using Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). Both tools are non-invasive and clinically proven methods for measuring balance and motor function.
The purpose of this study is to use non-invasive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans to investigate venous insufficiency, brain iron levels and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) to determine if there is direct correlation with Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (IPD). Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease and it affects roughly 0.1% to 0.3% of the population. The risk of having IPD increases with age and the median onset age is about 60 years. The etiology of IPD remains unknown. Generally, Parkinson's patients show a reduction of dopamine levels in the deep grey matter of the brain over time. Many clinically diagnosed cases of IPD are associated with white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and elevated brain iron levels. Furthermore, in the last few years there has been an increasing interest in the role of veins in neurodegenerative diseases. More attention has been paid to the extracranial veins as being potential sources of venous hypertension. The obstructed veins are thought to cause venous insufficiency. By using MRI techniques, the investigators can not only obtain qualitative vascular information but also quantitative arterial and venous blood flow measurements.
Connect.Parkinson is a randomized comparative effectiveness study, comparing usual care enhanced with educational materials to usual care, educational materials, and the delivery of specialty care via telemedicine into patient's homes. The study's specific aims are the following: 1. To demonstrate the feasibility of using telemedicine to deliver specialty care into the homes of individuals with Parkinson disease who have limited access to care; 2. To show that such an approach can improve quality of life; 3. To establish that the telemedicine can enhance the quality of care; and 4. To demonstrate that this remote approach to care saves time, reduces travel, and decreases care partner burden.
There are approximately one million Americans who live with Parkinson's disease with 50,000 new cases per year and this rate is expected to rise with an aging population. The underlying pathophysiology and disease understanding of PD still remains elusive due to a combination of disease complexity and lack of predictive capability of existing models. The Berg Interrogative Biology™ discovery platform has demonstrated a unique capability in producing drug targets and biomarkers that truly represent a disease phenotype. It has been able to catalyze molecules now in late stage clinical trials in cancer and many pre-clinical candidate therapeutics and biomarkers in endocrinology and central nervous system (CNS) diseases. The platform is able to decipher normal versus disease signatures by integration of data sets from the genome, metabolome, proteome, and lipidome in an agnostic manner that is subjected to Bayesian Artificial Intelligence informatics. The resulting nodes are then put back into wet-lab validation before proceeding to proof-of-principle pre-clinical testing. By utilizing clinical data and specimens obtained by the medical specialists at The Parkinson's Institute, along with Berg's Interrogative Biology™, this study aims to discover a disease biomarker enabling the creation of a diagnostic test for Parkinson's disease.
Potential for electrical stimulation to ameliorate Freezing of Gait (FOG)
This study will evaluate gait when individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) are walking and how walking changes when challenged to perform a functional cognitive task simultaneously. By looking at walking alone and walking with varying cognitive loads the investigators will be able to determine motor and cognitive factors vulnerable to interference in PD. Each is important to understand so that training can address components of walking that become impaired when someone is distracted by a common cognitive task and so that the intensity of treatment matches the level of task difficulty. Using this initial data, the investigators will establish a protocol to improve walking taking into account the unique features of PD, including bradykinesia, freezing of gait, stiffness, and problems with memory and attention. The investigators will evaluate the potential for this treatment to improve walking and improve or maintain cognitive abilities necessary to multitask.
The Harvard Biomarker Study is a Harvard-wide, longitudinal case-control study designed for discovering, replicating, and developing biomarkers for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. High-quality biosamples and high-resolution clinical phenotypes are tracked at three visits over a two-year period for more than 2,000 individuals with early-stage PD, MCI/AD, and controls without neurologic disease. The present "Ancillary Longitudinal CSF Collection Study (short HBS2)" is an ancillary study to the parent Harvard Biomarker Study. HBS2 is funded by the NINDS. In HBS2, 75 participants are more intensely studied and followed over a three-year time period. Clinical data and blood biospecimens are collected every six months and four annual CSF collections are performed. Biospecimens and clinical data are deposited into the NINDS PD Biomarkers Program (PDBP) Repository and the Data Management Resource (DMR) and are accessible through the PDBP DMR website.
As society ages, a large amount of human factors related research has been carried out into the subject of the safety of the elderly in their daily lives. However, most research focuses on the general elderly population and there is a serious lack of research into elderly sufferers of Parkinson's disease (PD), who receive a substantial amount of attention in medical circles. In the investigators previous study, the investigators have found that patient with PD had decreased ability to cross the road as compared to age/gender matched control subjects. Hence, this research proposed several training programs to enhance the safety of crossing road, including safe place finding，roadside search，time gap and perception of other's intentions. The investigators will compare the parameters of crossing road ability before and after training programs in patients with PD and control subjects. The results of this research will clarify the correlation between medical scale test indicators and movement safety for patients with PD. The effects of training programs will be provided for further safety management and design concepts to improve the lives of this disease group.
This project will investigate the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of an intensive and focused working memory training program for patients in the early stages of PD receiving dopaminergic therapy. The investigators hypothesize that working memory training will be an effective method of improving working memory and related cognitive and behavioural functions in PD patients.