View clinical trials related to Dementia in Parkinsons Disease.
Filter by:These caregivers are a vulnerable group due to their physical isolation and well-documented rural disparities in health care access and quality. Many rural dementia caregivers experience serious health consequences due to caregiving responsibilities that can limit their ability to maintain their caregiving role. Thus, there is a pressing need for effective, scalable, and accessible programs to support rural dementia caregivers. Online programs offer a convenient and readily translatable option for program delivery because they can be accessed by caregivers in the home and at the convenience of the user. Building Better Caregivers is an online 6-week, interactive, small-group self-management, social support, and skills-building workshop developed for caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease or related dementia. The investigators will conduct a hybrid effectiveness-implementation randomized controlled trial that will enroll and randomize 640 rural dementia caregivers into two groups: the intervention (workshop) group and the attention control group. Caregivers will be recruited throughout the United States. Primary outcomes will be caregiver stress and depression symptoms. The investigators hypothesize that stress scores and depression symptoms will be significantly improved at 12 months in the intervention group versus control group. The investigators will also identify key strengths (facilitators) and weaknesses (barriers) of workshop implementation. The investigators will use the RE-AIM implementation framework and a mixed methods approach to identify implementation characteristics pertinent to both caregivers and rural community organizations. If the Building Better Caregivers workshop is proven to be effective, this research has the potential to open new research horizons, particularly on how to reach and effectively support isolated dementia caregivers in rural areas with an intervention that is scalable, even in low-resourced settings. If the workshop can achieve its goals with rural dementia caregivers, some of those most isolated, it would also be expected to be scalable in other low-resourced settings (e.g., in urban or suburban environments).
The main objective of the MONANTI study is twofold: Firstly, to determine the amount of the anti-dementia drugs donepezil and memantine in the blood (henceforth mentioned as 'serum level) in a broadly defined clinical population of patients suffering from dementia treated with the two drugs in question. Secondly, to determine whether adjustment of treatment of anti-dementia medication according to serum levels will benefit patients in terms of cognitive performance, quality of life, frequency and severity of side effects. The reason for conduction of this study is that the relationship between serum-level of anti-dementia drugs, clinical efficacy, compliance and side effects has only been scarcely investigated. Both a previously published study and a preliminary (pilot)study conducted imply that roughly 50 % of patients on donepezil have serum-levels outside the recommended interval. Thus, MONANTI will investigate if this is indeed the case in a broadly comprised population of patients suffering from dementia treated with donepezil or memantine. In addition, MONANTI will link serum levels to co-morbidity, level of compliance, medication interactions. It is hypothesized that the efficacy of anti-dementia medication can be significantly improved by adjustment of treatment according to serum levels. Also, it is hypothesized that the burden of side effects can be reduced in patients in whom too high serum levels are detected, if dosage reduction or change of treatment drug is done. MONANTI is a randomized study, in which the assessor is blinded to avoid related biases to the extent possible. To fit the enrollment criteria a patient must be newly diagnosed with either Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy-bodies or Parkinson's disease with dementia and be described treatment with either donepezil or memantine. Also, the patient must not meet a list of (exclusion) criteria, which have been set up in order to avoid blur and biases of the results. Patients can be selected as participators on account of the above, including an informed consent to participation. Next, the participators will randomized be assigned to one of two study arms. In the first of these, the control arm, the participators receive only standard treatment and follow-up at the outpatient clinic, except for measurement of serum level of the anti-dementia medication with which they are treated and a genetic test for a few key genes thought to be relevant for the study (two liver enzymes, two genes linked to Alzheimer's disease). In the other arm, the intervention arm, the participators will be closely monitored for side effects after prescription of anti-dementia drugs. All these participators will be offered a measurement of serum level in case they experience possible side effects within 2 months of treatment initiation. If, not a measurement of the serum level will be done after 6 months. All patients in the intervention arm, will be offered adjustment of their treatment with the anti-dementia drug based upon serum level. To assess the possible effects of treatment adjustment seven clinical scoring tests will be used (MMSE, ACE, clock-drawing test, NPI-Q, DAD, GCI, GDS). Assessment includes symptom severity and level of compliance according to close relatives. To measure the effect of donepezil on brain (cholinergic) function 30 participants will be recruited for electroencephalography (EEG). These participants will have an EEG done at enrollment and after 6 months. In addition to the quantitative part study a qualitative part study with relatives of enrolled patients will be conducted. All the needed approvals have been obtained according to Danish law (approval by the Danish Data Protection Agency, Scientific Ethics Committee for Region Sjaelland, The Danish Medical Agencies).