View clinical trials related to Wounds and Injuries.
Filter by:This study evaluates the impact of platelet transfusion on geriatric patients with platelet dysfunction from Traumatic Brain Injury. The authors hypothesize that patients will recover better if their platelet dysfunction is corrected with platelet transfusion.
Bacterial load is frequently associated with impaired healing of chronic wounds. As well, sharp debridement is often associated with pain, causing patient distress, and thereby occasionally contributing to inadequacy of debridement, leading to a delay in wound healing. The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of the Sciton Laser in reducing bacterial load and patient distress in patients with chronic wounds, in efforts to expedite the wound healing process.
An interventional controlled trial to test the feasibility of applying risk score based prevention for critically ill patient at high risk to develop acute kidney injury (AKI)
The main aim of this project is to assess whether intravenous methylene blue can help identify the ureters during open and laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery. The ureters are small tubes that link the kidney to the bladder and, if not properly identified during surgery, may be damaged. Methylene blue has been safely given to patients for many years and it is fluorescent. It is removed by the kidney and will therefore travel through the ureters. Methylene blue shines brightly (becomes fluorescent) when viewed under red light. This study aims to compare the ability of methylene blue with white light to identify the location of the ureters during colorectal surgery. Recruitment will include 50 patients undergoing colorectal surgery (25 for keyhole/laparoscopic, 25 for open procedures). Each patient will act as their own control. To detect the fluorescence, a special fluorescent laparoscope for keyhole surgery will be utilised, and a wide-field camera will be used for open surgery. The potential benefits of this procedure are to identify the ureters during surgery and therefore prevent inadvertent damage to them It is hoped that near infra-red light emitting from the ureters will be detected. This will allow the surgeon to determine the anatomy of the ureters during the operation and avoid inadvertent injury. Funding source: Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford Recruitment sites: Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.
The prevention of secondary brain injury is a primary goal in treating patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Secondary brain injury results from tissue ischemia induced by increased vascular resistance in the at-risk brain tissue due to compression by traumatic hematomas, and development of cytotoxic and vasogenic tissue edema. While traumatic hematomas may be managed surgically, cytotoxic and vasogenic edema with resulting perfusion impairment perpetuates brain ischemia and injury. Animal models suggest that remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) can reverse these effects and improve perfusion. Based on these findings it is hypothesized that RIC will exert beneficial effects on TBI in man, thereby representing a new therapeutic strategy for severe TBI. Patients presenting to our institution suffering from severe TBI will be considered for enrollment. Eligible patients will have sustained a blunt, severe TBI (defined by Glasgow Coma Scale <8) with associated intra-cranial hematoma(s) not requiring immediate surgical decompression, with admission to an intensive care unit and insertion of an intra-cranial pressure monitor. Patients will be randomized to RIC versus sham-RIC intervention cohorts. RIC interventions will be performed using an automated device on the upper extremity delivering 20 cumulative minutes of limb ischemia in a single treatment session. The planned enrollment is a cohort of 40 patients. Outcomes of this study will include multiple domains. Our primary outcome will include serial assessments of validated serum biomarkers of neuronal injury and systemic inflammation. Secondary outcomes will include descriptions of the clinical course of each patient, radiologic assessment of brain perfusion, and neurocognitive and psychological assessment post-discharge. If clinical outcomes are improved using RIC, this study would support RIC as a novel treatment for TBI. Its advantages include safety and simplicity and, requiring no specialized equipment, its ability to be used in any environment including pre-hospital settings or in austere theatres. The investigators anticipate that TBI patients treated with RIC will have improved clinical, biochemical, and neuropsychological outcomes compared to standard treatment protocols.
This study will determine the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and safety of escalating doses of Basis following twice daily oral administration in patients with acute kidney injury (AKI). Basis is a commercially available nutritional supplement consisting of nicotinamide riboside (NR) and pterostilbene that acts to increase sirtuin activity.
Metacognition, in-the-moment awareness of performance while engaging in cognitive tasks, is negatively affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). Metacognitive deficits can greatly reduce quality of life for individuals with TBI as functioning in this domain has been closely linked with successful independent living and community re-integration. Problematically, there are currently no empirically validated treatment options that address metacognitive deficits after TBI. Recent research in healthy samples demonstrates that specific listening interventions may alter neural activation in brain works associated with metacognition and can improve metacognitive functioning; however, it remains unknown if these effects generalize to individuals with TBI. Thus, the objective of the proposed study is to use a double-blind, placebo controlled randomized clinical trial to determine the efficacy of applying a specific listening intervention to improve metacognition after TBI and to employ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to document the neural mechanisms by which the intervention operates.
To evaluate the relationship between secretion of melatonin and sleep quality in spinal cord injury patients versus a database of healthy volunteers.
Background: Head injury is one of the top three diagnosis leading to intensive care unit (ICU) admission in Malaysia. There has been growing interest in using immunonutrition as a mode of modulating the inflammatory response to injury or infection with the aim of improving clinical outcome. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of an immunonutrition on biomarkers (IL-6, glutathione, CRP, total protein and albumin) in traumatic brain injury patients. Methods: Thirty six patients with head injury admitted to neurosurgical ICU in University Malaya Medical Centre were recruited for this study, over a 6-month period from July 2014 to January 2015. Patients were randomized to receive either an immunonutrition (Group A) or a standard (Group B) enteral feed. Levels of biomarkers were measured at day 1, 5 and 7 of enteral feeding. Results: Patients in Group A showed significant reduction of IL-6 at day 5 (p<0.001) with concurrent rise in glutathione levels (p= 0.049). Patients in Group A also demonstrated a significant increase of total protein level at the end of the study (day 7). Conclusion: These findings indicate the potential of immunonutrition reducing cytokines and increasing antioxidant indices in patients with TBI. However, further studies incorporating patient outcomes are needed to determine its overall clinical benefits.
Patients with abnormal kidney function are common in primary care, particularly in people with other long standing illnesses. Some of these patients have long standing weakness of their kidneys, others develop new kidney weakness alongside other new illnesses. Patients with weak kidneys are more likely to be admitted to hospital, spend longer in hospital or die than those with normal kidneys. Although these events are common, how kidney weakness develops in the community is not well understood and awareness is poor. It is known that appropriate attention to a patient's medical care at times of high risk may reduce the onset of new kidney weakness. We have developed a new education package for primary healthcare professionals and patients. This will teach them about risks of new kidney weakness in their patients, give advice about how to combat them, and help prevent it occurring. This project will also use a new software tool - IMPAKT EVOLVE-AKI - to extract information from primary care systems and combine this with hospital data to identify developing kidney weakness much more accurately primary care . Both these elements of the study have already been tested in primary care and we are confident that they work well. Patients and the public have been involved in the development of these tools and will also be closely involved in their implementation. We now intend to implement the education more widely in primary care. We will then test how effectively the education has been implemented and whether it has a significant effect on the number of episodes of new kidney weakness developing in primary care. We calculate that we will need to provide this education to 36 practices to be able to determine accurately whether the programme significantly reduces new kidney weakness. Advice we have received from colleagues in primary care indicates that they are very interested in this education programme, and we believe that that a positive result from this study will lead to rapid and wide implementation of this combined programme of education and data analysis to the benefit of patients across the UK. This study fits well with a national programme of work in this area, and this combination will help with wider adoption of the study findings when the results are available.