View clinical trials related to Parkinson's Disease.
Filter by:This study will evaluate gait when individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) are walking and how walking changes when challenged to perform a functional cognitive task simultaneously. By looking at walking alone and walking with varying cognitive loads the investigators will be able to determine motor and cognitive factors vulnerable to interference in PD. Each is important to understand so that training can address components of walking that become impaired when someone is distracted by a common cognitive task and so that the intensity of treatment matches the level of task difficulty. Using this initial data, the investigators will establish a protocol to improve walking taking into account the unique features of PD, including bradykinesia, freezing of gait, stiffness, and problems with memory and attention. The investigators will evaluate the potential for this treatment to improve walking and improve or maintain cognitive abilities necessary to multitask.
The Harvard Biomarker Study is a Harvard-wide, longitudinal case-control study designed for discovering, replicating, and developing biomarkers for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. High-quality biosamples and high-resolution clinical phenotypes are tracked at three visits over a two-year period for more than 2,000 individuals with early-stage PD, MCI/AD, and controls without neurologic disease. The present "Ancillary Longitudinal CSF Collection Study (short HBS2)" is an ancillary study to the parent Harvard Biomarker Study. HBS2 is funded by the NINDS. In HBS2, 75 participants are more intensely studied and followed over a three-year time period. Clinical data and blood biospecimens are collected every six months and four annual CSF collections are performed. Biospecimens and clinical data are deposited into the NINDS PD Biomarkers Program (PDBP) Repository and the Data Management Resource (DMR) and are accessible through the PDBP DMR website.
As society ages, a large amount of human factors related research has been carried out into the subject of the safety of the elderly in their daily lives. However, most research focuses on the general elderly population and there is a serious lack of research into elderly sufferers of Parkinson's disease (PD), who receive a substantial amount of attention in medical circles. In the investigators previous study, the investigators have found that patient with PD had decreased ability to cross the road as compared to age/gender matched control subjects. Hence, this research proposed several training programs to enhance the safety of crossing road, including safe place finding，roadside search，time gap and perception of other's intentions. The investigators will compare the parameters of crossing road ability before and after training programs in patients with PD and control subjects. The results of this research will clarify the correlation between medical scale test indicators and movement safety for patients with PD. The effects of training programs will be provided for further safety management and design concepts to improve the lives of this disease group.
The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate that transdermal nicotine treatment retards disease progression as measured by change in total Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS)(part I, II, III)score between baseline and after 52 weeks of study treatment plus two more months wash out (60 weeks).
Gait rehabilitation with treadmill has been reported to be useful in patients with Parkinson's disease. In the last years, interest in robotic devices for gait training has grew up for patients with different neurological disorders, since they minimize demands on physical therapists and may provide a more reliable and constant treatment. The aim of this study is to evaluate if robotic gait training with Lokomat® can improve walking more than conventional gait training with treadmill in patients affected by Parkinson's disease.
The purpose of this study is 1.) to determine if sensory attention focused exercise is an effective management strategy for Parkinson's disease, and 2.) to identify if the benefits are a result of strength gains.
Exenatide is a licensed, safe and effective treatment for patients with Diabetes mellitus. Laboratory work has shown strong, reproducible evidence that this drug has beneficial "disease modifying" effects when given to animals with a range of experimental models of Parkinson's disease (PD). This project aims to make an initial evaluation of possible benefits of Exenatide among patients with moderate symptoms of PD. The drug will be given as a twice daily 10microgram injection under the skin in a similar way to one of the conventional "symptomatic" treatments for PD (Apomorphine). Forty patients with moderate symptoms of PD will be recruited and randomised to receive Exenatide injections twice daily, or to act as controls in this open label trial. Detailed assessments will be made of all patients at baseline and periodically for a total of 14 months. The primary outcome measure will be the change between baseline and follow up, in the severity of a validated PD assessment scale (the UPDRS part 3 motor score) after an overnight period free of conventional PD medication. Secondary measures will include adverse event reports, self completed questionnaires, and blood test results. Aside from these assessments, all patients will continue their regular PD medications throughout the trial with adjustments made only according to clinical need. In a subgroup of patients (n=10), brain scans that assess the severity of PD, will be performed at both baseline and follow up to help understand possible mechanisms of action of Exenatide.
The purpose of this study is to use a brain imaging method called PIB PET to determine dementia subtypes in patients with Parkinson's disease. The ultimate goal of this project is to be able to identify individuals with PD who are at risk of developing dementia, and to distinguish the underlying cause of dementia.
A decrease or loss of the sense of smell is very common in patients with Parkinson's Disease even in the earliest stages of the disease. There have been no treatments that have been proven to improve sense of smell in patients with Parkinson's Disease. Rasagiline (brand name: Azilect) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 16th 2006 to be used by Parkinson's patients to treat the motor symptoms associated with the disease. The purpose of this study is to see if there is change in sense of smell after starting Rasagiline.
This pilot study will assess the feasibility of using heavy water as a safe 'tracer' for biomarker studies of diseases of the brain and spinal cord, that, together, are also called the central nervous system (CNS). Heavy water, also called deuterated water or D20, is the same as normal drinking water except the hydrogen atoms have been replaced by deuterium, a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen. In particular, this study will use heavy water to define: 1) The rate of immune cell proliferation (growth) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) compared to blood. This study will be examining a particular type of immune cell called T lymphocytes. 2) This study will also examine selected molecules generated by nerve cells of the CNS to understand their rate of secretion and turnover in healthy control participants, HIV-1-infected participants and participants with a non-HIV-related neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson's disease (PD). This study will involve the administration of heavy water orally for either seven days, 12 days or six weeks. Measurements will be taken by lumbar puncture (LP, also known as a spinal tap). Blood (approximately five tablespoons per visit) will also be obtained at each of the lumbar puncture appointments. If this method can be used to establish the rates of immune cell turnover and the production rates of neuronal molecules using cerebrospinal fluid, it will provide unique data that is important to understand chronic neurodegenerative conditions, like PD, and to measure responses to targeted therapies. Hypothesis: 1. D2O, administered orally, can be used to measure the proliferation rates of CSF T cells (and, eventually, of their major phenotypic subsets). 2. D2O can be used to assess the turnover and production rates of CNS constituents that are normally or pathologically shed or secreted into the CSF, including (eventually): cargo molecules transported specifically in neurons in the CNS, such as chromogranin-A and -B, neuregulin-1 (specifically the extracellular secreted ectodomain of neuronal differentiation factor (NDF) isoform type α1, α2, β1, and the acetylcholine receptor inducing activity isoform (ARIA), secreted amyloid precursor protein (sAPP), alpha-synuclein; and APP metabolites amyloid beta (Aβ) 41 and 42.