View clinical trials related to Schizoaffective Disorder.
Filter by:Treatment with prednisolone can be used as a proof of concept to investigate the possibility of immune modulation as a treatment for schizophrenia. It is expected that daily treatment with prednisolone in addition to antipsychotic treatment reduces psychotic symptoms and improves cognition, as compared to placebo. The investigators propose to investigate the effects of administering the corticosteroid prednisolone versus placebo in addition to standard antipsychotic medication in patients with early stage schizophrenia or related disorders, hypothesizing that a decrease in the overall low-grade cerebral inflammation due to prednisolon treatment will be expressed as a decrease in overall symptom severity., Secondly, addition of prednisolone is hypothesised to slow down cognitive deterioration in recent-onset psychosis patients. Finally, the investigators aim to determine whether indirect immunological parameters of the hypothesised low grade inflammation status in schizophrenia are shifted due to the addition of prednisolone.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to test new pharmacologic strategies for weight loss in patients with schizophrenia, a population for which no current weight-loss treatments have gained widespread use. The goal is to recruit overweight people with schizophrenia to participate in a 52-week double-blind, randomized study to assess the efficacy and safety of lorcaserin/metformin combination treatment, lorcaserin monotherapy, and placebo on weight, body composition, and measures of glucose and lipid metabolism. Participants: Approximately 110 subjects will be enrolled at four clinical sites (UNC Chapel Hill, Carolina Behavioral Care, Columbia University, and Augusta University) Procedures (methods): Behavioral: All participants will be offered a behavioral intervention of weekly diet and exercise counseling aimed at modifying cardiovascular risk factors. This intervention will be provided at all in-person study visits after the Baseline Visit and supplemented with weekly interim phone calls to reinforce lessons between visits. Pharmacological Intervention: All participants who meet entry criteria will be randomized to one of the three treatment groups (lorcaserin/metformin, lorcaserin, and placebo).
This is an 8-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel, fixed-dose pilot clinical trial of curcumin for the treatment of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia.The primary aim of this pilot trial is to provide an effect size estimate for the efficacy of curcumin in improving cognitive functioning in schizophrenia. Secondary goals are to determine the effect of curcumin over time on negative and positive symptoms, in association with inflammatory markers.
Aim: To examine the efficacy of the combination of galantamine and memantine for the treatment of cognitive deficits in outpatients with schizophrenia. Hypothesis: A combination of galantamine and memantine will improve cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia. This is an open-label study to evaluate whether a six week course of galantamine ER and memantine XR is effective in improving the cognitive performance of patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The primary outcome measure will be the change in level of cognition as measured by the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB). The results of the MATRICS collaborative project recommended the need for standardized cognitive tests that better distinguish the different facets of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. The MCCB will assess the following seven domains: attention/vigilance, reasoning and problem solving, processing speed, social cognition, verbal learning and memory, visual learning and memory, and working memory. The MCCB will be administered at baseline and at the end of the study. We will report total score and each domain score in the MCCB at baseline and six weeks.
Social cognition impairment is critical to the pathology and morbidity of a number of psychiatric disorders, including the schizophrenia spectrum, the autism spectrum and the personality disorders, thus representing a dimension consistent with RDoC. As such, this study aims to a) further characterize the unique deficits in social cognition (recognition and interpretation of social cues and representation of thoughts, intentions, and feelings of others) across disorders, including the schizophrenia spectrum (which includes schizophrenia, SCZ, schizoaffective disorder, SAD, bipolar disorder, BD, and schizotypal personality disorder, SPD), the autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and borderline personality disorder (BPD) compared to healthy controls (HC); b) assess the effect of intranasal oxytocin (OXT) as a regulator and novel treatment of social cognition impairment in these disorders; and c) enhance our understanding of the specificity and exact mechanisms of impairment to inform the accurate dosing of OXT required to modulate social cognition in these disorders and identify a model of optimum social cognitive function. Addressing these questions will further catalyze research into a model of optimum social cognitive activity, and accelerate industry development of agents suited to routine clinical administration.
The study looks at whether treatment with iloperidone (Fanapt) is associated with improvements in social cognition in individuals who have been recently diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Social cognition (the ability to understand your feelings and the feelings of others) is closely related to functional outcomes, including communication, empathy, and emotional recognition.
The purpose of the study is to determine whether two commonly-prescribed antipsychotic medications (aripiprazole and risperidone) have different effects on brain function and cognition in schizophrenia patients.
Current Canadian Clinical Practice guidelines emphasize the need for effective psychosocial adjuncts to pharmacotherapy for schizophrenia (Canadian Psychiatric Association 2005). This randomized control trial seeks to contribute to the body of evidence supporting psychosocial treatments by assessing the effectiveness of metacognitive training (MCT) and cognitive remediation (CR) at treating the persistent positive and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. MCT is a therapy designed to improve patient awareness and insight into the cognitive biases that are frequently seen in schizophrenia; it has been associated with decreased psychopathology (specifically decreased positive symptoms) and improved psychosocial function. CR is a therapy designed to improve performance in a variety of neurocognitive functions such as attention, memory, and executive functioning; it has been associated with improved cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Both MCT and CR will be compared to treatment as usual (TAU) as done previously (Kumar er al., 2010; Moritz et al., 2011). Hypotheses: 1. MCT will produce greater change in delusions (severity and conviction) than CR and TAU. 2. CR and MCT will produce greater change in social/everyday functioning than TAU. 3. CR will produce greater improvement in basic attention and memory measures relative to MCT and TAU. 4. MCT will produce greater reduction on tasks measuring targeted reasoning biases relative to CR and TAU. 5. CR will increase efficiency of functional networks on a working memory task relative to MCT and TAU. 6. MCT will lead to a greater decrease in the neural response to evidence matches relative to CR and TAU.
In the current study, the investigators propose to measure the five domains of social cognition identified by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) as relevant to individuals with psychosis (i.e., theory of mind, attribution style, emotion recognition, social perception, and social knowledge). The investigators will also explore the association between different domains of social cognition and outcomes relevant to psychotic disorder (e.g., symptomatology, social functioning, and vocational functioning).
We hypothesize that the use of a visual decision aid tool to educate patients regarding potential harm with respect to weight gain with olanzapine versus perphenazine can lead to better shared decision making by patients, increase rates of antipsychotic switches and promote weight loss in overweight patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder. Our specific aims are the following: 1. To investigate the effects of a visual decision aid, versus care as usual, on patients' perceived difficulties in medical decision making regarding switching antipsychotics in overweight veterans with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. 2. To investigate the effects of a visual decision aid and a shared decision making model on rate of medication switches (from olanzapine to perphenazine) in overweight veterans with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. 3. To investigate the effects of a visual decision making aid and shared decision making model on BMI in overweight veterans who switch from olanzapine to perphenazine therapy.