View clinical trials related to Neurocognitive Disorders.
Filter by:Postoperative delirium (POD) and postoperative neuropsychological dysfunction are frequently noted in critically ill patients undergoing elective or emergency surgery and treated in the intensive care unit (ICU). Delirium is a serious complication that prolongs hospital stay and contributes to poor outcomes and increased risk of death. The pathomechanisms of delirium are still not very well recognized and there are several theories that seem to explain it. The most important pathomechanisms of delirium are associated with cerebral ischaemia, disorders in acetylcholinergic system, disorders in neuronal plasticity and oxidative stress. Cerebrolysin, a mixture of various peptides obtained from the structural proteins of the pig's brain, possesses strong antioxidative and neuronal protective properties. Cerebrolysin is recommended to treat patients with dementia, after cerebral ischemia and after brain trauma. It has been documented that Cerebrolysin reduces the severity of secondary brain damage after ischemia, improving neuronal plasticity and then cognitive function, and reducing severity of oxidative stress. Based on these properties it can be speculated that Cerebrolysin may reduce the risk of postoperative delirium in patients undergoing elective surgery, which are associated with a high risk of postoperative delirium.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique using a low intensity electric current to modify cortical excitability. Apathy is a pervasive neuropsychiatric symptom characterized by a reduction in goal-directed behavior and activity that persists over time and causes identifiable functional impairment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of repeated sessions of tDCS combined with simultaneous cognitive training on apathy in older people with minor neurocognitive disorders.
The protocol is organized into three Phases - In Phase I an online training program will be developed in "Care of Persons with Dementia in their Environments" (COPE) -an evidence-based bio-behavioral dementia program -using state-of-the science simulation and best online learning practices. In addition an automated approach to fidelity monitoring using computational linguistics (automatic classification programs) will be developed. In Phase II, ten long term care community-based (PACE) organizations will be randomized into two groups; 5 PACE organizations will serve as the "control" site in which staff training will be provided via the traditional high intensity face-to-face training in the COPE program. 5 PACE organizations will serve as the comparison and staff will be trained using the online COPE training program. Phase II will evaluate the whether an online training program is the same or better in improving PACE staff competency and fidelity to COPE principles and protocols compared to a high intensity face-to-face traditional form of training. In Phase III the efficacy of the COPE program on PACE participant outcomes by type of COPE training will be evaluated. Each of the PACE organizations will enroll 5 persons with dementia and their caregivers in the study. This will yield 50 family dyads (25 dyads in traditional training sites and 25 dyads in online training sites). Dyads will be followed for 4 months. Non-inferiority analysis will be used to assess whether dyads will yield the same or better outcomes regardless of how PACE staff were trained.
The experimental design is an open-label two-week trial of tolcapone to evaluate which clinical domains are affected by tolcapone treatment and to identify "responders" to tolcapone treatment in the two subject groups (BI and NCD)