View clinical trials related to Cerebrovascular Disease.
Filter by:This study will evaluate a complex intervention based on a patient management tool (PMT), combined with educational outreach to primary care doctors, nurses and other health workers, in the Brazilian city of Florianopolis. The intervention is aimed at improving the quality of primary health care and health outcomes, in adults with diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The effectiveness of the intervention will be assessed by randomly allocating 48 primary care clinics to receive the intervention or not, and comparing patient and clinic level endpoints that reflect the health and quality of care provided over the following year. About 11000 patients known to have been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus and 32000 with CVD (defined as having a diagnosis of hypertension, ischemic heart disease, heart failure or cerebrovascular disease) in participating clinics will be included in the study. About 7800 of them have diagnoses of both CVD and stroke. The primary endpoints will be 1. Number of participants in whom at least one of the following tests was recorded: body mass index, plasma glucose, serum cholesterol, electrocardiogram, and 2. in participants with a diagnosis of hypertension recorded previously, average systolic blood pressure recorded. Secondary endpoints will include the individual components of the composite scores, health measures (hospital admissions and deaths), and indicators of appropriate diagnosis of comorbid conditions such as depression. Eligible patients will be identified and outcomes measured using electronic medical records.
Current methods based on traditional Cardiovascular risk factors are not clinically useful for identifying Type 2 Diabetes patients at risk of developing acute Cardiovascular ischemic events (ie.myocardial infarction or stroke). In addition, Cardiovascular ischemic events in Type 2 Diabetes population have worse prognosis than in general population. In fact, there is sufficient experimental evidence indicating that diabetes exaggerates the deleterious effects of ischemic events and worsens their outcome. A prolonged sub-clinical phase exists before a Cardiovascular event occurs in Type 2 Diabetes patients. Therefore, new strategies aimed at identifying those patients with this subclinical Cardiovascular Diabetes and, consequently, more prone to develop Cardiovascular events is a challenge to be met.
The proposed project is a prospective observational, single-center cohort study aimed to examine the progression of atherosclerotic alterations of the carotid arteries (IMT, plaque volume) during a follow-up of up to four years and to correlate the observed changes with traditional and novel biomarkers of atherosclerosis. A total of 600 subsequent patients with or established cardiovascular disease or at least one cardiovascular risk will be tested with a high-frequency ultrasound probe equipped with automated IMT measurements and 3D quantitative plaque volumetry. Plasma samples will be collected and tested for traditional and novel cardiovascular risk factors. Both ultrasound examinations and blood sampling will be repeated once per year to assess changes in these parameters over time depending on treatment modalities, which are left to the discretion of the treating physicians. The primary endpoint of the planned study will be the correlation between P-selectin and the progression of atherosclerosis as measured by plaque volume and IMT in the carotid and femoral arteries, respectively. Secondary endpoints will include the correlation of established (hypertension, smoking, diabetes, dyslipidemia) and novel risk factors (hsCRP, P-selectin, cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), CETP TaqIb polymorphism) with the progression of atherosclerosis, the correlation of cardiovascular events with the progression of atherosclerosis and the additional predictive value of plaque volume and IMT compared to an established risk score (SCORE card).
The Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study is an interdisciplinary, community-based, prospective longitudinal epidemiologic study examining the influences of race and socioeconomic status (SES) on the development of age-related health disparities among socioeconomically diverse African Americans and whites in Baltimore. This study investigates whether health disparities develop or persist due to differences in SES, differences in race, or their interaction. HANDLS is unique because it assesses physical parameters as well as evaluating genetic, biologic, demographic, and psychosocial parameters of African American and white participants over a wide range of socioeconomic statuses, longitudinally. HANDLS also employs novel research tools, mobile medical research vehicles, in hopes of improving participation rates and retention among non-traditional research participants. The domains of the HANDLS study include: nutrition, cognition, biologic biomarkers, body composition and bone quality, physical function and performance, psychology, genomics, neighborhood environment and cardiovascular disease. Utilizing data from these study domains will facilitate an understanding of selected underlying factors of persistent black-white health disparities in overall longevity, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive decline. HANDLS recruited a fixed cohort as an area probability sample of Baltimore City from August 2004 through November 2009 as Wave 1. HANDLS Wave 2 entitled The Association of Personality and Socioeconomic status with Health Status An Interim Follow-up Study began in June 2006 under a separate protocol. It was designed as a follow-up telephone interview approximately 18 months after the initial examination (Wave 1) was complete. Wave 2 provided interim contact with study participants, and important interim information regarding their health. Now completed, waves 3, 4 and 5 were follow-up examinations visits to our mobile Medical Research Vehicles (MRVs). In September 2020, HANDLS initiated wave 6; telephone interviews and limited in-person visits as a COVID-centric protocol. The current protocol outlines Wave 7, the fourth follow-up examination and the participants fifth visit to our mobile Medical Research Vehicles (MRVs). Planned as a follow-up after 3-4 years, Wave 7 consists of health examinations, questionnaires, sensory assessments (visual and olfactory), health literacy assessment, renal function assessments, environmental assessments, and for a sub-set of participants; structural MRIs, a personality inventory and an examination of sleep and cognition under separate protocols. HANDLS will resume in-person examinations with wave 7 in which we will prioritize contacting participants who were not seen in wave 5.
This is a Congressionally mandated study. In the original study, 16 demonstration programs provided care coordination services to beneficiaries with chronic illness in Medicare's fee-for-service program. A five-year CMS-funded study tested whether the programs can improve patients' use of medical services, improve patients' outcomes and satisfaction with care, and reduce Medicare costs. The study also assessed physicians' satisfaction with the programs. In 2008 Congress extended the project for two of the original programs--Mercy Medical Center - North Iowa and Health Quality Partners in Pennsylvania--and they will enroll Medicare beneficiaries and provide care coordination services into the spring of 2010.