View clinical trials related to Alcohol Dependence.
Filter by:The approach and avoidance task (AAT) has evolved as a promising treatment add-on in the realm of psychology. Certain psychiatric diseases, such as behavioural addictions, social anxiety disorder, and arachnophobia, are characterized by a dysfunctional tendency to either approach or avoid disease-specific objects. This tendency can be measured by means of the approach and avoidance task. In this so-called diagnostic AAT participants are instructed to react upon the format or the frame colour of a picture. For instance, pictures have to be pushed away if they are presented in landscape format and pulled towards oneself if they are presented in portrait format (or vice versa). Hence, the format (or the frame colour) becomes the task-relevant dimension, whereas the content of the picture becomes the task-irrelevant dimension. However, what generally becomes obvious in the psychiatric diseases mentioned above is that the task-irrelevant dimension (picture content) exerts an influence on reaction times. For instance, alcoholic patients are generally faster to respond if alcoholic pictures are presented in a format requiring them to pull towards themselves and slower to respond if alcoholic pictures are shown in the format requiring them to push away a joystick. This behavioural tendency has been termed an approach bias for alcohol. In order to counteract these dysfunctional approach or avoidance tendencies, an AAT-training has been developed. In this training participants/patients learn to either avoid or approach disease-specific objects. Alcohol-dependent patients, for instance, learn to avoid alcohol-related pictures by pushing or swiping the image away. It has been shown that these trainings can enhance treatment outcome (e.g. lower relapse rates) among alcohol-addicted patients (Wiers, Eberl, Rinck, Becker, & Lindenmeyer, 2011). The aim of the current study is to test whether the avoidance gesture is as important as suggested by the AAT's name or whether inhibiting the urge to approach alcoholic content might be enough to bring about the effect.
The gut microbiota is critical to health and functions with a level of complexity comparable to that of an organ system. Dysbiosis, or alterations of this gut microbiota ecology, have been implicated in a number of disease states. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), defined as infusion of feces from healthy donors to affected subjects, is a method to restore a balanced gut microbiota and has attracted great interest in recent years due to its efficacy and ease of use. FMT is now recommended as the most effective therapy for CDI not responding to standard therapies. Recent studies have suggested that dysbiosis is associated with a variety of disorders, and that FMT could be a useful treatment. Randomized controlled trial has been conducted in a number of disorders and shown positive results, including alcoholic hepatitis, Crohn's disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), pouchitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), hepatic encephalopathy and metabolic syndrome. Case series/reports and pilot studies has shown positive results in other disorders including Celiac disease, functional dyspepsia, constipation, metabolic syndrome such as diabetes mellitus, multidrug-resistant, hepatic encephalopathy, multiple sclerosis, pseudo-obstruction, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) or Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) infection, radiation-induced toxicity, multiple organ dysfunction, dysbiotic bowel syndrome, MRSA enteritis, Pseudomembranous enteritis, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), and atopy. Despite FMT appears to be relatively safe and efficacious in treating a wide range of disease, its safety and efficacy in a usual clinical setting is unknown. More data is required to confirm safety and efficacy of FMT. Therefore, the investigators aim to conduct a pilot study to investigate the efficacy and safety of FMT in a variety of dysbiosis-associated disorder.
Sleep disorders are very common in alcohol patients (40-90% according to studies) These sleep disorders may persist after withdrawal and represent a major factor in relapse. In a previous study, the investigators validated a simple sleep questionnaire (the "Short Sleep Index = SSI") from a multicentre series of 602 American patients (Perney et al., Alcohol Alcohol 2012) The SSI is obtained from the Hamilton score (baseline score for anxiety and depression)
The rate of relapse following an inpatient alcohol rehabilitation program has been around 50% for a number of years. Offered treatments mainly focus on conscious and controllable aspects of behaviour, but research has found that much of the craving in addiction is guided by automatic processes, which are for a large part unconscious and poorly controlled by the individual. One way to influence these automatic processes is by applying cognitive bias modification, a cognitive-behavioural intervention that can be applied by a computer application. In alcohol addition, a common cognitive bias is the Alcohol-Approach bias. The Anti-Alcohol Training is a form of cognitive bias modification that was developed to reduce this approach bias and it has been shown to reduce the rates of relapse by 4-8%. A drawback of the training is that patients do not continue this at home after discharge. One way to increase accessibility is to offer the training in an app-game form. In this study the investigators have developed a smartphone based training app that allows patients to more easily use the Anti-Alcohol training at home after discharge. The study aims to assess whether use of the app further reduces the alcohol bias and whether it can reduce yearly relapse rates.
Alcohol dependence is one of most common substance dependence, which brings great burden on health worldwide. Alcohol dependence may lead to many serious diseases or consequences including cancer, cardiovascular diseases and accidents. Once alcohol dependence is developed, it will be difficult to recover and easy to relapse. Although many efforts had been made in the treatment of alcohol dependence, the annual recurrence of alcohol dependence with traditional therapies was over 45%. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) each alone was reported to have some effect on preventing from relapse of alcohol dependence. In order to test whether combined therapy of high frequency rTMS (hf-rTMS) with CBT is better for preventing from relapse of alcohol dependence, we recruit patients with alcohol dependence to participate this study. The study is a factorial designed and the patients will be assigned into one of the following six groups randomly: (1) regular treatment (symptomatic treatment) with blank TMS; (2) regular treatment (RT) with blank TMS and CBT; (3) RT with right DLPFC hf-rTMS; (4) RT with right DLPFC hf-rTMS and CBT; (5) RT with left DLPFC hf-rTMS; (6) RT with left DLPFC hf-rTMS and CBT. TMS was given 5 days per week for total 2 weeks using uniform scheme (5 seconds of 10Hz stimulation per train, 30 trains per day with inter-train interval of 20 seconds). CBT will be given once per week for total 8 weeks. The patients will be followed up for 6 months. Recurrence of alcohol dependence, duration of abstention, alcohol intake, craving for alcohol and other cognitive psychological assessments will be recorded and compared among the 6 treatment groups and the efficacy of combined therapy of rTMS with CBT will be evaluated in our study.
The study will explore the efficacy and tolerability of a regimen of NAC (2400 mg) versus placebo for the treatment of alcohol dependence.
Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a significant public health problem, with prevalence rates of 13.9% for current and 29.1% for lifetime diagnosis (Grant et al., 2015). AUD creates harm at the individual, familial, and societal level, with an estimated societal cost of $249 billion (Sacks et al., 2015) per year. The course of AUD typically is characterized by periods of relapse to problematic drinking (Maisto et al., 2014), signaling a need for better treatments and understanding of mechanisms of behavior change. The goal of this research is to conduct a randomized clinical trial with 140 participants who have an Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). Each participant will complete behavioral assessments, self-report surveys and brain imaging before and after receiving psychotherapy treatment to change their drinking behaviors. Various aspects of behavior change will be looked at to better understand changes in brain function and emotional reactivity when someone changes their patterns of alcohol use. The two treatment used in this study have been found to be helpful in reducing alcohol use. Participants will be randomly assigned to either Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) or Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) that will be completed in 12 weekly therapy sessions. It is anticipated that there will be numerous changes in brain function that are found when someone reduces or stops their alcohol use after the completion of 12 weeks of treatment.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of rapamycin (sirolimus) versus a placebo, an inactive substance, on responses to alcohol cues in individuals with alcohol use disorder. Rapamycin (sirolimus) is a FDA-approved antibiotic and immunosuppressive drug that is currently used to (a) prevent organ transplant recipients from rejecting their transplants (b) treat cardiovascular diseases, and (c) treat some forms of cancer. Rapamycin (sirolimus) is not FDA-approved to treat alcohol use disorder. The use of rapamycin (sirolimus) in this study is investigational, meaning that the study medication is not a proven treatment for alcohol use disorder. The study will examine the medication's use as a potential treatment for alcohol use disorder, as well as how safe and tolerable it is to take.
This study evaluates the efficacy of a skills training web-based mobile phone application, Telecoach among individuals in the general population seeking help for their risky alcohol consumption on the Internet. The design is a two-armed randomized controlled design, and outcomes are measured in terms of changes in excessive alcohol use at follow up 6, 12 and 26 weeks after study initiation and baseline data gathering. The Telecoach web app delivers skills training in the form of exercises commonly used in psychosocial interventions for risky alcohol use. The controll condition is a web app providing information on the effects of alcohol on the consumers' health.
The purpose of this study was to assess efficacy and safety of the study drug Odelepran, 125 mg as compared to placebo in the treatment of alcohol dependence in adult outpatients.