View clinical trials related to Alzheimer Disease.
Filter by:A program that combines high intensity aerobic exercise (<85% of Heart Rate Reserve) with resistance, progressive and moderate intensity intervals, carried out in primary care, is effective in terms of a smaller increase in respect to the baseline measurement in the total score of the ADAS cognitive section (Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive section),in the control group that receives an intervention similar to low intensity (30-40% of Heart rate reserve). We Expect a difference of at least 3 points between the means of the increments between the intervention and control group.
We are extending the researches of Taiwan neurosurgery traumatic brain injury (TBI) database which is led by Professor WT Chiu in Taipei Medical University and will recruit mild TBI (mTBI) participants who have ever been registered in the database. This database has been established for over 15 years and contains the information of over 150000 patients. It is one of the largest TBI database in the world. TBI usually results from traffic accidents, falls or violence events. Most of the victims are young people and the victims suffer from life-threatening and mental-physical deficits. Mild TBI (mTBI) usually was neglected before because its symptoms, signs are mild and mTBI patients usually were not obtained enough initial treatment. Therefore, mTBI might result in long-term cognitive and affective impairments, such as depression, indifference, anxiety, memory impairment, loss of attention and executive function. These late effects not only decrease the life quality of patients and their family but also increase the social and medical burden. Recent epidemiology studies have pointed out that TBI would increase the risk for dementia, especially Alzheimer disease (AD) by 2-4 times. However, the association between TBI severity, number of repeats, genetic factors and onset of AD remains further investigation. Amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are the pathological hallmarks for AD. Accumulation of Aβ is considered to be the first step of pathophysilogy of AD. Compelling researches have supported TBI accelerates the formation and accumulation of Aβ. These findings could link TBI with AD but the previous researches had limitations. There was lack of mTBI pathology data so the impacts of mTBI on Aβ accumulation were still obscure. By amyloid-PET, we could study the effects of mTBI on the accumulation of Aβ and this tool could be helpful for understanding the real impacts and pathophysiological mechanisms of mTBI on AD.
To conduct a proof of concept study in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's Disease in order to determine if there is less global brain atrophy over one year, as measured by ventricular enlargement as a primary outcome measure, when patients are randomized to treatment with an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) compared to an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI).
One of the crucial challenges for the future of Alzheimer's disease (AD) therapeutic approaches in elderly is to target the main pathological process responsible for disability and dependency. However, a progressive cognitive impairment occurring after the age of 70 is often related to mixed lesions of neurodegenerative and vascular origins. Whereas young patients are mostly affected by pure lesions, aging favors the occurrence of co-lesions of AD, vascular and Lewy body types. Pure DLB (Dementia with Lewy Body) and AD are distinct disorders but they often coexist in old age patients, the Abeta pathology of DLB/AD cases being different to that observed in patients with AD alone. Vascular dementia (VD) and AD with cerebrovascular disease (AD+CVD) are the leading causes of dementia next to AD alone. Lack of consensus persists about the diagnosis criteria for VD and AD+CVD, due in part to their clinical, pathological heterogeneity and the multiple pathological subtypes. We do not know the precise role and weight of each brain lesion type in the disability progression in elderly. To target the actual pathological process, we need to disclose the functional weight of AD, Lewy body and vascular lesion types in elderly. Most of the studies report on functional and clinical abnormalities in patients with pure pathologies. Thus, co-morbid processes involved in the transition from an independent functional status to disability in the elderly with co-lesions still remain to be elucidated. Neuropathological examination often performed at late stages cannot answer this question at mild or moderate stages. Brain MRI, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) with DaTscan® and CSF biomarkers help routinely in performing the diagnosis of pure or mixed lesions responsible for dementia. The topography of the atrophy in MRI helps to provide information about the etiological diagnosis. Medial temporal lobe atrophy on MRI has good discriminatory power for AD compared to DLB and VD in pathologically confirmed cases. DaTscan® SPECT presents with good sensitivity and specificity at early stages of DLB. The good diagnosis value of CSF biological markers has led recently to their inclusion in the research diagnosis criteria of AD. Low Aβ1-42 and high levels of total tau and hyperphosphorylated tau isoforms appear to be the most sensitive and specific CSF biomarkers. Aβ1-42 is lowered in AD, as well as in other neurodegenerative diseases like DLB, VD. The combination of MRI, particularly medial temporal atrophy measures and vascular lesions on FLAIR MRI sequences, SPECT and CSF biomarkers seem to be of incremental value for the diagnosis AD, VD, DLB and mixed profiles. The aim of this study is to identify the biomarkers (MRI, SPECT-DaTscan® and CSF), and their combination, that are the most predictive of functional disability in elderly presenting with a progressive cognitive decline related to AD, DLB, VD and all mixed patterns.
The Alzheimer's Prevention Registry (www.endALZnow.org) will collect contact and demographic information on individuals. The objective is to provide information the latest news and advances in Alzheimer's prevention research, and to inform enrollees about research studies in their community. Enrolled individuals will receive regular email communications. As research studies become available, individuals will be notified via email with information as to how proceed should they be interested. Registry enrollees are under no obligation to participate in a research study. Study opportunities may include surveys, healthy lifestyle interventions (e.g., diet, exercise), memory & thinking tests, brain scans, and investigational drug trials. To join the Registry, please visit www.endALZnow.org
Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Lewy body's dementia (LBD) are two frequent neurodegenerative pathologies. They differ in their expression, their evolution but share same features which make their diagnosis uneasy. Constructional apraxia has been described in both disease.The underlying mechanisms have been less studied and could be different in AD and LBD. The definition of the constructional apraxia is purely descriptive and few models are inconclusive. It is admitted that drawing tasks involve visuo-perceptive and visuo-spatial abilities, executive functions and working memory as well as purely "constructive" skills. Regarding to different studies, visuo-perceptive abilities are more severely impaired in LBD than in AD and are considered as an early onset sign of the disease. Executive functions deficits are documented in AD and LDB and could contribute to the drawing impairment. It is possible to compensate the planning disorders in giving patient the best strategy to use. If drawing impairment persists, they should result of others mechanisms like visuo-perception, visuo-spatial or constructive deficits. The investigators suggest that giving the best planning strategy will help more AD patients who are supposed to fail in raison of an executive impairment, than the LDB group who is supposed to present visuo-perceptive deficits. An MRI will be proposed to study the cerebral areas involved in constructional apraxia.
Exercise has been shown to be beneficial for the brain. The investigators would like to test this specifically for those diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. This study will involve 30 randomized patients to take part in the out-patient exercise program and 30 patients to continue with their regular activities over a 6-month period. Once that period is over, half of the 30 patients who participated in the outpatient exercise program will continue in the program and the other half will be randomized to independently continue to exercise. The investigators hypothesize that exercising will benefit the patient by slowing the dementia process, improving behavioral symptoms, and decreasing volume loss of certain brain regions. Each person will perform personalized exercise regimens, MR imaging and neuropsychological tests will be used to measure the benefits of exercise. Ultimately, the hope is that the results of this study could be used to facilitate exercise programs for patients. Enrollment is completely voluntary and all personal data obtained will remain confidential.
We aim to evaluate the safety and efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for apathy treatment in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We hypothesize that rTMS will be superior to placebo to reduce apathy symptoms and severity in patients with AD.
Patients with memory disorders are experiencing different trends which are difficult to predict. Moreover, the distinction between Lewy body disease and Alzheimer's disease is not easy as both diseases can present similar symptoms. Nowadays, routine examinations exist and can improve the diagnosis but there are not specific enough of one of those two pathologies. Lewy body disease is characterized by the presence of particular structures in patient's brain, called "Lewy body", composed of a protein called "alpha-synuclein". The aim of this study is to measure the rate of alpha-synuclein in cerebrospinal fluid. This measurement could allow us to differentiate patient with Alzheimer's disease from those with Lewy body disease.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether mirtazapine is effective in the treatment of sleep disorders in Alzheimers disease.