View clinical trials related to Sclerosis.
Filter by:Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is characterized by episodic attacks in which there are sharp declines in physical function. Although neurorehabilitation is the most promising clinical strategy for motor recovery in patients with MS, treatment responsiveness and outcomes are mixed. This is perhaps because each individual with MS has a different capacity to improve with rehabilitation, and this capacity may be based on a variety of baseline factors, such as disease duration, motivation, cognitive status and integrity of underlying brain structures. A better understanding of what "key ingredients" facilitate relearning of motor skills during neurorehabilitation is critically needed. Much of the focus of rehabilitation is on relearning motor skills. The initial stage of learning a motor skills often requires explicit concentration on the details of the movement. As one becomes more proficient in the motor skill, it becomes less attention-demanding and more automatic. Those who can perform motor skills more automatically will be better able to manage the additional demands of a secondary task; thus, capacity for dual-task performance can be used as an index of automaticity. Individuals with MS experience demyelination that impacts brain areas critical for motor learning. However, the specific clinical and pathological variables that facilitate capacity for motor learning in people with MS have not been identified. Identification of such variables could be leveraged to determine a patient's capacity to benefit from neurorehabilitation at the outset and potentially to maximize motor learning during rehabilitation for people with MS. Thus, there is an urgent need to determine the key ingredients most strongly associated with successful relearning of motor skills in MS patients. Our long-term goal is to develop individualized rehabilitation for persons with MS. Our overall objective in this application is to identify clinical and pathological variables associated with successful relearning of motor skills. Our central hypothesis, based on preliminary data, is that the ability to learn to make new movements automatically occurs over a dynamic range and is a function of available cognitive processing speed and the integrity of corticospinal tract and superior cerebellar peduncles. We will test these hypotheses by recruiting 146 individuals with relapsing-remitting MS to participate in a mechanistic trial not designed to be a therapeutic intervention. Participants will complete baseline testing (including neuroimaging, cognitive testing and dual-task performance) followed by 4 consecutive days of training on a challenging balance task. After a 2-day washout period, participants will return for post-testing (including dual-task performance on a dual-balance and working memory task). The rationale for the proposed research is that identification of key ingredients associated with the capacity for motor skill acquisition would allow for more targeted rehabilitation programming, thereby improving patient outcomes and reducing health care expenses. At the completion of the proposed research, we expect to understand more about the capacity for individuals with MS to improve with motor skill training, and some of the key ingredients that help predict successful shift toward task automaticity, one critical component of successful neurorehabilitation. The results of this proposal will facilitate the development of predictors of motor recovery, needed to improve rehabilitation outcomes for individuals with MS and other neurodegenerative diseases.
The objective of the study is to describe the current status of MS patients with urinary disorders in Lebanon, and to demonstrate whether invasive investigations improve the management of these patients compared to an optimal non-invasive approach.
This prospective, non-interventional research registry is designed to study the comparative effectiveness and comparative safety of approved treatments for MS in a cohort of patients cared for by neurologists across North America. Secondary objectives include analyzing the epidemiology and natural history of the disease, its comorbidities, and current treatment practices.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease in which the myelin surrounding the nerve cells is damaged which affects functioning. MS usually is treated with medications designed to reduce the occurrence of future MS events. Evidence suggests that an important part of the disease process is damage to the myelin and brain caused by too much oxygen (sometimes called oxidative stress) or too much inflammation (or swelling). The overall goal of this study will be to determine whether N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) will help to support cerebral function in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). This positron emission tomography magnetic resonance imaging (PET-MRI) study will utilize 18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography FDG PET to measure cerebral metabolism, along with MRI analysis, to measure metabolism and structural effects of NAC in patients with MS.
The goal of this study is to investigate the safety and tolerability of autologous bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells administration in the individuals with diagnosed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
The goal of this study is to investigate the safety and tolerability of allogeneic Wharton's jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells administration in the individuals with diagnosed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
To establish a new prospective cohort of Korean patients with systemic sclerosis and track the natural history of the disease over time. To generate new hypotheses for further investigation.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory, debilitating disease that causes destruction of central nervous system (CNS) myelin, with varying degrees of axonal damage. It mainly affects young adults and is twice as common in women as in men (1). Studies published from the 1990s brought animal models and theoretical considerations of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) being useful in the prevention and treatment of autoimmune diseases, with clinical responses in some patients, suggesting that high-dose chemotherapy followed by HSCT rescue could "reset" the immunological changes through the control of autoreactive clones, followed by immunological tolerance after immune reconstitution (2); this led to the conclusion that HSCT may be a viable therapeutic option for MS (1-6). Autologous HSCT have been done in patients with MS since 1996 and more than 700 HSCTs have been performed around the world (1-6). Most patients have been treated in small trials or in multicenter studies. In retrospective analyzes, a progression-free survival of more than five years after transplant has been observed, the neurological outcomes being considerably more favorable in patients with the relapsing-remitting type and/or those who showed an inflammatory pattern in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) during the pre-transplant screening. Reports of good results, particularly in the aggressive forms of MS reinforce the effectiveness HSCT in MS patients with prominent inflammatory activity. The risk of transplant related mortality in HSCT for MS was conventionally considered very high but has declined since 2001 to 1.3% (2-6), this probably being the result of the changes in the conditioning regimens, thus reducing toxicity. Recent data, with more than 700 autologous transplants for MS in Europe, showed an overall survival of 92% in five years and a progression-free survival of 46%, the main cause of mortality and morbidity being the recurrence of the autoimmune disease (2-6). The consensus provides an indication of HSCT in patients with progressive MS unresponsive to conventional therapy and Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) (1) between 3.0 and 6.0. The forms of the disease that might benefit from transplantation are: relapsing remitting, primary or secondary progressive, and the "malignant" form, provided there is evidence of inflammatory activity at the time of transplant indication.
This is a pilot study (a small scale study testing procedures so that the investigators can apply this to a larger scale study). This study will test the accuracy of a new brain scan (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) technique in predicting the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) in patients where there is uncertainty about the diagnosis. For patients where there is a suspicion (but not definite) diagnosis of MS, an additional MRI brain scan will be offered. There will be no other research tests and the patient is followed up to see what the eventual diagnosis is. The investigators will then review the original brain scan to see if this predicted the diagnosis of MS or not.
The goals of this study are: (1) to better understand the relationship between the phenotype and genotype of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and related diseases, including primary lateral sclerosis (PLS), hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), progressive muscular atrophy (PMA), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD); and (2) to develop biomarkers that might be useful in aiding therapy development for this group of disorders.