View clinical trials related to Disorders of Consciousness.
Filter by:Currently, there are significant challenges in the clinical assessment of patients with consciousness disorders, such as distinguishing between vegetative state (VS) and minimally conscious state (MCS), and predicting patient prognosis. This study aims to utilize different research techniques, such as auditory stimulation, as well as modified microstate methods, to enhance the disease classification and prognosis prediction of patients with chronic consciousness disorders.
Simultaneous measurement of the three modalities, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and electroencephalography (EEG) was proven to be feasible and advantageous in evaluating brain structural and functional (via fMRI), metabolic (via PET) and electrophysiological (via EEG) signatures simultaneously under the same conditions. Investigators use trimodal PET-fMRI-EEG imaging to explore the characteristics of brain network damage in patients with disorders of consciousness(DOC), assess the trajectory of consciousness recovery in a prospective observational cohort study.
Disorders of consciousness (DoC) remain a major clinical challenge in which high rates of misdiagnosis and difficult prognostication stem from limitations in the ability to access the disordered physiological processes mechanisms of coma in real world clinical settings. There is a great need to develop, validate, and translate to clinical use reliable diagnostics to detect brain recovery potential not evident on neurobehavioral assessment. While resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) has demonstrated potential to improve the diagnostic evaluation of DoC by detecting features of consciousness that are occult at bedside evaluation, this technology has yet to achieve widespread clinical utility. The investigators propose that recent advancements in rs-fMRI capabilities can be combined with streamlined analysis and interpretation approaches to overcome persistent intensive care unit to perform rs-fMRI in patients with prolonged impaired consciousness due to several causes including TBI, cardiac arrest, stroke, seizures, and severe CNS infection. The investigators will determine the optimal methods of data acquisition, analysis and interpretation for predicting recovery of consciousness in these patients. Our expectations are that this approach will produce highly reliable functional connectomic characterization of individual DoC patients, thereby allowing for more accurate outcome prediction. The investigators will additionally investigate the utility of a novel, simplified radiological approach to rs-fMRI data interpretation in comparison to computationally intensive connectomic approaches. This exploratory/developmental project is expected to provide critical data needed to design and appropriately power future R01 studies validating the efficacy of fMRI-based network integrity in the clinical evaluation of DoC.
Improved treatment of severe brain injuries has resulted in increased survival rates. While some of these patients regain consciousness after a transient state of coma, others may develop a disorder of consciousness (DoC). Diagnosis of DoC currently relies on standardized behavioral assessment. The importance of accuracy in such diagnosis cannot be overstated, as it guides critical decisions on treatment (including pain management), and could underlie end-of-life decisions. Despite this importance, current behavioral diagnosis often fails, if because of the major sensory and motor deficits associated with DoC, or because of the heterogeneous etiology and pathophysiology associated with the condition. Finally, the need for accurate diagnosis and prognosis transcends the needs of the patients alone: caregiving of these patients is very stressful, principally for the large uncertainty associated with them. Thus, more accurate diagnosis and prognosis provide major relief for caregivers, and paradoxically, even if the news is not "good". For all these reasons it is critical to developing personalized diagnosis and prognosis prediction tools that permit a stratified analysis at the single-patient level. The PerBrain Project will benefit from the multidisciplinary partners' expertise, and the unique opportunity to perform longitudinal assessments in four clinical sites through both established and novel electrophysiological, neuroimaging, and physiological techniques. Based on the collected data, the investigators will develop a multimodal personalized diagnostic tool for DoC patients using state-of-the-art computational tools, such as machine learning, in order to better determine the current state (diagnosis) and future outcome (prognosis). The overall aim of this project will provide for a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms in DoC, which will, in turn, allow personalized rehabilitation strategies, and improved single-patient predictions of state and prognosis.
Background: After a period of coma, patients with severe brain injury may present disorders of consciousness (DOC). A wide proportion of these patients also suffer from severe dysphagia. Assessment and therapy of swallowing disabilities of DOC patients are essential because dysphagia has major functional consequences and comorbidities. Dysphagia evaluation in patients with DOC is hampered by the lack of adapted tools. The first aim of the study was to develop a new tool, the SWallowing Assessment in Disorders Of Consciousness (SWADOC), and propose a validation protocol. The SWADOC tool has been developed to help therapists to apprehend components related to swallowing in patients with DOC. The second aim is to appreciate the relationship between patients' level of consciousness and SWADOC items and scores. Method/design: In this multicentric prospective cohort, 104 patients with DOC will be tested three times during two consecutive days with the SWADOC tool. Statistical analyses will focus on the reliability and validity of the SWADOC tool, especially the intra and inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, measures of dispersion and concurrent validity with the FOTT Swallowing Assessment of Saliva (FOTT-SAS). The level of consciousness will be assessed with the Simplified Evaluation of CONsciousness Disorders (SECONDs) and the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) Discussion: The assessment of swallowing abilities among patients with DOC is the first necessary step towards the development of an individualized dysphagia care plan. A validated scoring tool will be essential for clinicians to better apprehend dysphagia in DOC patients and to document the evolution of their disorders.
The purpose of this study is to characterize and improve pain and nociception management in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). This project is divided into two phases, a first phase to evaluate pain level and a second phase which consist of a clinical trial to evalute pain medication efficacy. The main aim is to evaluate the use of the Nociception Coma Scale-Revised (NCS-R) and its cut-off score (i.e., 5) as an assessment and management tool to define guidelines for managing pain in patients with DOC. In this double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study, we will evaluate the use of analgesic treatments in reducing pain in subacute/chronic patients. The project will also allow us to validate the NCS-R cut-off score defined previously.
In this preliminary study, we will examine the safety, tolerability, and feasibility of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), in the setting of dosage escalation, as a candidate intervention for children with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI).
This study aims at comparing the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial pulsed current stimulation on neurophysiological outcomes on patients with disorders of consciousness. This study also aims to evaluate the effects of these techniques on patients' level of consciousness.
In this study, the core body temperature of 7 disorders of consciousness ( DOC ) patients were measured every 2 hour for 168 h .
Progress in resuscitation has increased the chances of survival after anoxic or traumatic brain injury. More and more patients with severe cerebral damages are resuscitated but upon awakening from coma, some patients remain in a state which cannot be qualified as conscious and is now known as an unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS; formerly known as vegetative state). This condition can be transitory and evolve towards recovery, or remain chronic and lasting for years. To improve the diagnosis of patients with disorders of consciousness, recent advances in brain imaging have led to the development of new methods of detecting awareness. In the absence of overt behavioral responses from these patients, imaging-based diagnostic methods have been first used to assess whether some cerebral areas were preserved in UWS patients and showed an activation of the primary sensory cortices in some UWS patients, whether it occurs at the auditory, visual or somatosensory level. Unavoidable technical and ethical issues are raised for clinicians before responding to such requests: 1. Is it technically possible to generalize neuroimaging protocols to all healthcare institutions? 2. Is it ethically acceptable to propose neuroimaging protocols without an accurate estimation of their psychological impact on families and caregivers? The present study aims to understand and anticipate the technical and ethical issues related to an evaluation of consciousness with functional neuroimaging. How the evaluation of awareness in a patient affects the caregivers and family members will be investigated. By using qualitative research hopes and expectations will be clarified through the experiences of families, clinicians and nurses faced to this situation. Will be included in this research professional caregivers and persons closely related to UWS patients: - Family members or close circle visiting the patients on a regular basis - Referring clinicians - Nurses in charge of the patients' care This prospective study uses qualitative, interview-based, research. Two key-moments are explored in succession to examine the impact of a neuroimaging evaluation of consciousness in institutionalized UWS patients: - interviews of professional caregivers and families about their hopes concerning the evaluation of consciousness of UWS patients, - interviews of professional caregivers and families about the impact of evaluating consciousness on their beliefs