View clinical trials related to Lewy Body Disease.
Filter by: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.
Synucleinopathies are a group of rare diseases associated with worsening neurological deficits and the abnormal accumulation of the protein α-synuclein in the nervous system. Onset is usually in late adulthood at age 50 or older. Usually, synucleinopathies present clinically with slowness of movement, coordination difficulties or mild cognitive impairment. Development of these features indicates that abnormal alpha-synuclein deposits have destroyed key areas of the brain involved in the control of movement or cognition. Patients with synucleinopathies and signs of CNS-deficits are frequently diagnosed with Parkinson disease (PD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) or multiple system atrophy (MSA). However, accumulation of alpha-synuclein and death of nerve cells can also begin outside the brain in the autonomic nerves. In such cases, syncucleinopathies present first with symptoms of autonomic impairment (unexplained constipation, urinary difficulties, and sexual dysfunction). In rare cases, hypotension on standing (a disorder known as orthostatic hypotension) may be the only clinical finding. This "pre-motor" autonomic stage suggests that the disease process may not yet have spread to the brain. After a variable period of time, but usually within 5-years, most patients with abnormally low blood pressure on standing develop cognitive or motor abnormalities. This stepwise evolution indicates that the disease spreads from the body to the brain. Another indication of this spread is that acting out dreams (i.e., REM sleep behavior disorder, RBD) a problem that occurs when the lower part of the brain is affected, may also be the first noticeable sign of Parkinson disease. The purpose of this study is to document the clinical features and biological markers of patients with synucleinopathies and better understand how these disorders evolve over time. The study will involve following patients diagnosed with a synucleinopathy (PD/DLB and MSA) and those believed to be in the "pre-motor" stage (with isolated autonomic impairment and/or RBD). Through a careful series of follow-up visits to participating Centers, we will focus on finding biological clues that predict which patients will develop motor/cognitive problems and which ones have the resilience to keep the disease at bay preventing spread to the brain. We will also define the natural history of MSA - the most aggressive of the synucleinopathies.
The aim of this study is to determine whether saccadic eye movement recording may help in the discrimination between Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer disease, in the early stages of the disease. Study type: Interventional Study design: Intervention Model: Single group assignment Primary purpose: Diagnostic
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ability to identify individuals with dopaminergic degeneration in group of patients with a clinical diagnosis of either dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) or idiopathic Parkinson's disease and to differentiate them from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and control subjects.
Deep brain stimulation has been developed as a substitute for the classical lesioning methods previously used in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery. Recent, anecdotal cases reports suggested that electrical stimulation of the cholinergic output of the Nucleus Basalis of Meynert (NBM) may improve cognitive performances, especially the memory tasks. The present study aims to assess the effect of bilateral electrical stimulation of the NBM on the mnesic performance [assessed by the sum of the three free recalls of the Free and Cued Selective Recall Reminding Test (FCSRT)] in patients diagnosed with probable, moderate, Dementia with Lewy Bodies.
Empathy, defined as the ability to understand others emotions, is a fundamental concept in social interactions. It is a psychological phenomenon involving various separable components : (i) the ability to feel and imagine the emotions, (ii) the ability to adopt the perspective of other people. Several neurological diseases with behavioral disorders may lead to impaired processing of social and/or emotional informations. These pathologies are likely to induce a lack of empathy that may result from impairments at different levels. The objective is simply to study how others' emotions are understood and how this allows for regulation of personal behavior. This study is being carried out among patients seen for various health problems and who can make behavior changes. This study could help to understand some neurological diseases and thereby to identify them earlier and/or to better differentiate them.
The purpose of this study is to confirm the efficacy of E2020 in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).
The purpose of this study is to evaluate if a drug commonly used to treat excessive day-time sleepiness, called armodafinil (Nuvigil), is also effective in improving the impairment in the attention commonly reported by patients with more advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) and Lewy body disease (LBD).
The present study aims at combining biochemical methods with various types of imaging techniques to identify the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The main interest is to find markers associated with the very early steps in the pathology of this disease. The investigators shall thus screen for i) molecules in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma specific for AD, and ii) brain imaging markers (e.g. MRI and PET) that correlate to detailed clinical assessments. Biomarkers of interest would then be useful to: 1. Enable accurate detection of the disease early on. Such biomarkers need to specifically reflect the very early pathophysiology of AD and distinguish it from disorders with similar symptomatology, such as other types of dementia and major depression. The sensitivity and specificity of these biomarkers in combination with clinical assessment should be of at least 90%. 2. Enable prediction of the course of events of the disease, such as the disease rate in individual patients. Biomarkers that can predict the pattern of future symptoms will be extremely valuable. 3. Allow monitoring of early effects of new disease-modifying therapies (so-called surrogate biomarkers). Currently clinical therapeutic trials for AD require large patient groups together with long-term treatment. Both size of the groups and treatment time will be reduced with the help of surrogate biomarkers. 4. Study the pathogenesis of the disease. Biomarkers can be used to investigate in detail early alterations in AD patients. For instance, changes in the levels of certain molecules in CSF together with genetic predisposition could then be correlated to clinical signs and changes detectable by brain imaging. This can lead to identification of new therapeutic targets that could easily be monitored in future trials.
This research study is to examine the effects of the study medication Armodafinil in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). DLB is associated with memory and other thinking problems, excessive daytime sleepiness, hallucinations, delusions, apathy, and reduced quality of life. One type of medication that could potentially improve daytime sleepiness, memory and thinking skills, hallucinations, delusions, apathy, and quality of life is known as a wake-promoting medication. Armodafinil is a wake-promoting medication that has been developed for treatment of patients with narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and other disorders which cause excessive daytime sleepiness. The drug used in this study is considered investigational, which means it has either not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for routine clinical use or for the use described in this study. However the FDA has allowed the use of this drug/device in this research study. In this study, patients with DLB will receive daily oral Armodafinil tablets, and their response to treatment will be assessed over 12 weeks. This study does not involve any placebo medication, so all patients will receive Armodafinil treatment.