View clinical trials related to Spinal Cord Injury.
Filter by:This is a laboratory-based study to evaluate the risk of shoulder injury associated with transfers between wheelchair and vehicle in persons with spinal cord injury. Four new devices will be compared against an unassisted transfer.
The purpose of this study is to determine if the use of a respiratory resistance trainer will increase respiratory muscle strength, improve sleep quality and improve quality of life in individuals with spinal cord injury. Hypothesis: Use of the respiratory resistance trainer will improve respiratory muscle strength, improve sleep quality, and improve quality of life among individuals with spinal cord injury.
The purpose of this investigation is to determine the effect of lower limb vibration therapy on bone density in the tibia in patients with spinal cord injury. The second purpose is to assess the neuromuscular junction variability at the motor units of the tibialis anterior muscle after a sequence of lower limb vibration therapy
The Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) is a national leader in using distance technology to monitor patients' self-care via an in-home messaging device with disease management protocols (DMPs). No such DMPs exist for the community dwelling spinal cord injury/disorders (SCI/D) population. Our objective is to develop the tools necessary for implementing a new home telehealth program to manage community-dwelling veterans with SCI/D at high risk of developing pressure ulcers (PrUs).
We hypothesize that probiotic Lactobacillus can augment antibiotic treatment of symptomatic urinary tract infection (UTI) in spinal cord injured patients, and also increase the time to the next episode of UTI.
Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to muscle atrophy, hyperreflexia and spasticity, symptoms that decrease quality of life and prevent effective rehabilitation. Previous findings from our labs found that a passive cycling exercise program, motorized bicycle exercise training (MBET), in adult spinally transected animals reduced muscle atrophy and normalized hyperreflexia. We found that MBET could prevent the onset of hyperreflexia after spinal transaction, that MBET could also be used to rescue from hyperreflexia once it had set in, and that MBET could induce savings in normalization of reflexes after MBET ceased. We also demonstrated that MBET was effective in rescuing from hyperreflexia in a chronic ASIA B SCI patient, and that short-term MBET could lead to brief savings in normalization of reflexes once MBET ceased. The proposed studies will test the ability to MBET to prevent the onset of hyperreflexia in a group of acute SCI patients trained before hyperreflexia has had a chance to set in. In addition, the proposed research will attempt to confirm the possibility that long-term MBET in chronic SCI patients will rescue from hyperreflexia once it has set in, and also produce significant savings in normalization of reflexes if carried out for long periods of time. We will also test the possibility that MBET in acute and/or chronic SCI patients could reduce or prevent muscle atrophy. The experimental design calls for assessing muscle mass using MRI scans, bone density using Dual-Energy X-ray Absortiometry (DEXA) scans, spasticity measures and electrophysiological measurements to determine low frequency habituation of the H-reflex. Assessments will be carried out before MBET, during a 25 week MBET block of time, and during a 12 week post MBET monitoring period. Changes in muscle mass, bone density, spasticity scales and H-reflex habituation will be compared across these interventions and between treated SCI victims and a group of control acute and chronic SCI victims undergoing standard of care during the same period.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an implanted stimulator and sensor for providing hand and arm function for individuals with cervical level spinal cord injury.
In the past two decades there have been great strides made in understanding the biological changes resulting from spinal cord injury (SCI). The future holds promise of the development of therapies that will promote degrees of repair and recovery of function for people living with SCI. Lessons learned from past "failed" SCI clinical trials, however, demonstrate that, in order to accurately evaluate the overall effectiveness of SCI therapies, more sensitive outcomes measures are needed. Specifically, and reflecting the ultimate goal of clinical interventions - inducing functional recovery - the Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM), has been recommended for further testing and development for use as a measure of functional ability in future SCI clinical studies. The SCIM is a very simple questionnaire and score sheet that an evaluator uses to determine how independently a person with SCI can perform certain tasks. A panel of SCI researchers recommended the SCIM as the most suitable among four candidate measures of functional recovery reviewed at a special meeting sponsored by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) at a joint meeting of the American Spinal Injury Association and the International Spinal Cord Society (ASIA-ISCoS) in Boston, MA, in June 2006. It was recommended that a large-scale, multi-center, prospective trial be conducted in the United States, which would mirror a recently published multi-site international study. The proposed research on the SCIM III, the latest and most sensitive version of the SCIM, would test the hypothesis that the SCIM III is a valid, reliable, and sensitive measure of functional ability in persons with SCI. Twenty-two rehabilitation centers throughout the United States will enroll a maximum of 660 subjects. Functional ability will be measured with the SCIM III during the first week of admittance into inpatient acute rehabilitation and within one week of discharge from the same rehabilitation program. Statistical analyses will be used to test the validity, reliability, and sensitivity of the SCIM III. The results will demonstrate whether the SCIM III is a suitable outcome measure to assess SCI specific functional ability in future clinical trials.
The goal of this study is to compare the changes that occur in sensation and chemical properties of the brain following SCI between individuals that experience chronic pain and those that do not, and between those with SCI and the able-bodied.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the tolerability and efficacy of erythropoietin (EPO) treatment in spinal shock in comparison with the methylprednisolone treatment (MP).