View clinical trials related to Schizophrenia.
Filter by:Background: Celiac disease is an immune-mediated reaction to gluten, presenting with diarrhea, weight loss, abdominal complaints and a range of less common associated neurologic and psychiatric symptoms. Evidence of a link between schizophrenia and celiac disease dates back to 1961. Recent evidence shows that 5.5% (age adjusted) of persons with schizophrenia participating in the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) study had a level of antibodies to tTG that is consistent with a diagnosis of celiac disease (compared to 1.1% of the comparison sample). An unexpected finding was that 23.4% (age adjusted) of the CATIE sample had antibodies to gliadin (compared to 2.9% of the comparison sample). It is hypothesized that a gluten free diet in people with schizophrenia who have Celiac disease or gluten sensitivity will have improvement in symptoms and quality of life. Objectives: The aim of this proposed pilot study is to establish the feasibility of a initiating and maintaining a Gluten-free diet in these two groups. For this study The investigators will identify 8 individuals who have positive assays to tTG antibodies and confirmed celiac disease (N=4), or positive assays for anti-gliadin antibodies (N=4). The investigators plan to consent at least 2 subjects from each group and ask them to participate in a two-week open label treatment of a gluten free diet. The groups are; 1. Celiac disease (positive tTG antibody); and 2. Positive assay on Antigliadin antibodies
This study in patients with schizophrenia is designed to provide preliminary evidence of the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics as well as the effects on cognitive function of 2 doses of EVP-6124 compared with placebo when given with the patient's usual antipsychotic medication.
The investigators want to relate disturbances in first-episode schizophrenic patients in (dopaminergic) D2 receptors, brain structure, brain function, and information processing to each other and to psychopathology. Additionally, the investigators want to examine the influence of D2 receptor blockade on these disturbances. The investigators expect disturbances in the dopaminergic system at baseline to correlate with specific structural and functional changes and with disruption in information processing as measured with psychophysiological and neurocognitive methods - and investigators expect D2 receptor blockade to reverse some of the functional and cognitive impairments. The investigators do not expect any effect of treatment on brain structure.
Cognitive training is moderately effective at reducing symptoms and improving life function in schizophrenia patients. The present application develops a strategy for increasing the effectiveness of cognitive training through the use of pro-cognitive medications. Specific biomarkers will be studied that identify patients most sensitive to these pro-cognitive medications, to test the feasibility of using these biomarkers in a large clinical trial of medication-enhanced cognitive training in schizophrenia.
This study will test the safety of an aripiprazole injection in subjects with schizophrenia that are currently taking oral antipsychotic medication other than aripiprazole. Subjects in this study will receive one injection of aripiprazole and will need to stop taking their other antipsychotic medication two weeks after the injection. The study will last one month. Subjects will be required to come to a clinic for evaluations and drug and urine collection five times during the course of the study.
The aim of this study is to look at the effectiveness of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) as a therapeutic intervention for patients with schizophrenia. The primary outcome is improvement in negative symptoms related to schizophrenia. The investigators are focusing on negative symptoms given their greater resistance to pharmacological and other established therapies. If the investigators trial were to show beneficial effects, its clinical significance would be great.
People with schizophrenia often have problems with negative symptoms; expressing and identifying their emotions, their amount of speech, motivation and interests, feelings of purpose, social skills, and experiencing enjoyment. For this reason, new interventions are being developed to treat these problems. One new intervention is the Motivation and Engagement (MOVE) Program. The MOVE program is a new program which consists of weekly meetings for 9 months between a patient and a trainer. The weekly meetings will consist of goal setting and organization of the home to make daily tasks more manageable. During the weekly meetings the patient and trainer will discuss emotions and the trainer will help the patient identify their emotions. The researchers hope to learn whether MOVE will help improve the problems. If it works the researchers will do a larger study comparing MOVE to other treatments that have addressed some of the problems already. The therapist will ask you if the sessions can be audio taped to ensure that the therapist is doing a helpful job for you. They will also ask if the session can be video taped so that the tapes can be used to train other therapists learning about MOVE. The choice to do either of these is voluntary and you can continue to participate in the study if you choose not to have the session be audio and/or video taped.You will be provided a University Release document to provide that permission if you so choose.
The investigators propose to explore: 1. the acceptance by patients of once versus twice daily dosing with asenapine, 2. the acceptance by staff of once versus twice daily dosing with asenapine, and 3. the changes in psychopathology associated with these two dosing strategies, in 30 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The investigators hypothesize that patient and staff acceptance will be better with once daily dosing and that improvements in psychopathology will be similar across once daily and twice daily dosing
In spite of the numerous studies on schizophrenia, its etiology and physiopathology remain unknown. Evidence suggests a possible implication of nitric oxide (NO) in schizophrenia. NO is a gas with unique chemistry and influences the release of neurotransmitters, learning, memory and neurodevelopment. Recent studies that investigated the role of NO in patients with schizophrenia found evidence that points to a disruption in NO-mediated neurotransmission in schizophrenia. Accordingly, we believe that the administration of sodium nitroprusside, an NO donor, will ameliorate schizophrenia symptoms.
Patients who suffer from diseases of the schizophrenia spectrum are frequently burdened by weight gain. Sport programs have been shown to improve somatic and psychological health. However, the motivation to participate in sports therapy is usually impaired due to illness-related factors such as anhedonia and negative symptoms. Previous attempts to increase participation in sports therapy have used psycho-educational and behavioral attempts that require a lot of resources. In this study the investigators will use a brief method developed in experimental social psychology to build up implementation intentions. This method has been shown to improve psychological test performance in schizophrenia patients but has never been used in a clinical context. In two psychiatric hospitals, in-patients with schizophrenia who have been examined by a medical doctor, for whom any medical concerns for sports therapy participation have been excluded and who declared their motivation to participate in an existing standard sports exercise program will be recruited for the study. After information on the study and signing of an informed consent patients will be randomly assigned to two treatment conditions. In the control condition, the main therapist will individually deliver a 10-minute psycho-education on the helpfulness of sports to improve the health; this will be repeated in a shorter form in the regular individual treatment sessions over the following weeks. The intervention condition will use a structured procedure of the same duration to build up implementation intentions to participate in the sports therapy. The implementation intentions will briefly be repeated and updated in the following session. Primary outcome variables will be percentage of attended sport therapy sessions, persistence and compliance. Secondary outcome variables will be Body Mass Index. As confounding variables the investigators will assess amount of anti-psychotic medication in Chlorpromazine equivalents, negative and depressive symptoms, usual sport activities and cognitive impairments. The investigators expect that building up implementation intentions will increase participation, persistence and compliance of the patients in the sports and exercise therapy program compared to the patients who just have received psycho-education.