View clinical trials related to Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.
Filter by:With an average of 21,000 diagnosed brain injuries each year among military personnel, traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a major health concern for the United States Military Health System. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the most common type of brain injury sustained by military personnel and may result in chronic cognitive impairment.Unfortunately, many service members (SMs) have a history of multiple head injuries as well as psychological co-morbidities that negatively influence recovery. Advances in treatment options for cognitive rehabilitation following mTBI have been of increasing interest to the medical community and may increase treatment efficacy for injured SMs to ensure force readiness. Cognitive Rehabilitation (CR) for severe brain injury focuses on compensatory strategies for activities of daily living such as using lists to remember grocery items or reminders to take medications and attend medical appointments. Research has shown CR interventions to have considerable effectiveness in the acute and sub-acute phase of recovery after severe TBI. But there is insufficient evidence that they improve rates of individuals returning to work, independence in activities of daily living (ADL), community re-integration, or quality of life.
This is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded trial in which subjects with a post concussive headache meeting inclusion criterion will be assigned to one of two treatment groups: placebo or nortriptyline. Each group will be evaluated at week 0 and again each week for the next 4 weeks of treatment with a concussion survey that rates their symptoms. At the end of 4 weeks the study will be unblinded. It is hypothesized that the addition of nortriptyline to the standard headache treatments will result in more rapid decrease of symptom score than with placebo.
The investigators will test the central hypotheses according to the following Specific Aims: Aim 1. Determine if an individually prescribed exercise program initiated within the first week of mild traumatic brain injury can reduce the risk of developing persistent post-concussion symptoms relative to usual care. The investigators hypothesize that the exercise group will have a lower risk of developing persistent post-concussion symptoms than the usual care group. Aim 2. Examine the effect of a two-month exercise program on psycho-social, pain interference, and sleep outcomes following mild traumatic brain injury. The investigators hypothesize the exercise group will report lower anxiety, depression, and pain interference ratings, and higher peer relationship and sleep quality ratings two months of exercise following mild traumatic brain injury compared to usual care.
This study aims to adapt two decision aids (DAs) (pediatric and adult) developed in the United States to the Quebec context to develop context-adapted tools and training program that will facilitate the process of shared decision-making while taking a decision to use head computed tomography (CT scan) with patients suffering from a mild traumatic brain injury.
This is a research study that aims to examine whether Veterans with mild Traumatic Brain Injuries are at risk for dementia by studying their memory, brain wave activity, brain structure and proteins that can be elevated after brain injury and in dementia.
Veterans with mild traumatic brain injury continue to deal with symptoms that interfere with their ability to engage in productive activities. In combination with other psychosocial difficulties, impairments are found in cognition, such as attention and executive function. Few interventions are available to treat attention in Veterans with mTBI. Of the interventions available, none rigorously train attention combined with strategy training. This project will innovatively combine a strategy training called Goal Management Training with computerized attention training to improve tests of problem solving, attention and functional tasks compared to a control group.
The objectives of this VA Merit application are to identify a neural target unique to Veterans with co-occurring alcohol use disorder and mild traumatic brain injury (AUD+mTBI) and to test the efficacy of this target as a stimulation site for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) treatment to maximize functional recovery. rTMS will soon be a treatment option at 30 VAs nationwide and preliminary studies show promise for AUD and mTBI treatment. A better understanding of how AUD+mTBI impacts the brain needs to occur in order to advance rTMS to optimize function. This research is aligned with the VA RR&D's mission to generate knowledge and innovations to advance the rehabilitative health and care of Veterans, to effectively integrate clinical and applied rehabilitation research, and translate research results into practice. This research is also aligned with the goal of the Psychological Health & Social Reintegration portfolio to develop interventions improving psychological health status of Veterans enabling them to function more fully in society.
Patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) represent a burden of patients admitted to the emergency department. According to the guidelines, a cerebral CT scan is indicated after mTBI according to the specific conditions. However, variability exists regarding the respect of these CT scan indications, and less than 10% of patients will have visible brain lesions on CT scan. Recently, serum Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP) and Ubiquitin C-terminal Hydrolase-L1 (UCH-L1) biomarkers have shown ability to differentiate normal and abnormal CT scan findings after mTBI. These encouraging results prompted us to launch a prospective study using automated and quick measurements of GFAP and UCH-L1 biomarkers to validate these findings.
This pilot study is designed to provide preliminary data for a large scale, randomized clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of remotely administrated at home transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) with real-time monitoring via VA Tele-health for persistent post traumatic headache associated with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Participants will receive total of 20 sessions of tDCS over four weeks. The investigators anticipate that the results generated from the study will directly translate into immediate meaningful clinical application: not only in management of chronic post traumatic headache, but also in reduction of acute pain medication use, and improving quality of life for our veterans with this debilitating neurological disorder.
Physical activity and exercise have traditionally not been much of a focus in treatment of postconcussion symptoms and posttraumatic headache. On the contrary, patients have often got advice to rest until they were free from symptoms. This approach, however, is challenged, and complete rest should probably be discouraged after the first 24-72 hours. Moderate aerobic exercise has been found promising in the early phase after sports-related concussion, and in the treatment of patients with headache. This study is an open pilot-study of guided, home-based exercise in a clinical sample with postconcussion symptoms and posttraumatic headache after mixed-mechanism mild traumatic brain injury and minimal head injuries. The study will result in data about the feasibility and possible effects of exercise as treatment for prolonged postconcussion symptoms and posttraumatic headache.