Virtual Rehabilitation Innovations for Motivation
Virtual RehabilitationCP (Cerebral Palsy)3 moreChildren and young people with movement difficulties such as Cerebral Palsy (CP) and Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) report that traditional therapies are highly repetitive and labourious. This influences enjoyment and participation in regular therapy programmes and may result in reduced adherence to therapy or exercise regimes, limiting effectiveness. This study will build on the team's previous work to explore the potential use of Virtual-Reality (VR) technologies in rehabilitation; particularly systems that can be used at home to increase accessibility and reduce need to attend clinics for therapy. During the co-production events of the VR4REHAB Inter Regional North West Europe (NWE) funded programme in 2018, young people desired the use of commercial games for therapeutic purposes. This work has enabled connections between affordable computer technologies: the Raspberry Pi, VR headsets and freely available commercial games. This 2-Phased project is therefore exploring the potential of commercially available virtual reality (VR) systems consoles and games for use in rehabilitation programmes. The Investigators hope to gain information on: Whether commercially produced VR games can provide a motivating environment to support adherence to therapy Whether it is possible to improve reaching and grasp-release hand movements through this method Gain an understanding of the ages of children and young people most likely to benefit from home-based VR therapy User evaluation and performance data and therapist evaluations will be collected and compared to baseline data to provide information on usability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability.
Evaluating the Impact of Focused Muscle Contraction Therapy in Retire APF Players
Chronic Pain Due to InjuryAcute Pain2 moreThis study will investigate the effects of an exercise intervention on retired American professional football (APF) players. A total of 20 retired APF players (≥ 18 years of age), who suffer from chronic pain, will be enrolled. The study duration for each participants will be 18 months. Enrolled participants will perform a 18 months exercise intervention which involves 90 exercise rehabilitation training visits. In addition, participants will also be tested on various measures of health and function both at baseline (prior to intervention), at 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months (post intervention). All testing and result interpretation will be performed by trained research personnel. Participants are not University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) participants; however, study testing visits will occur at UIC. All exercise intervention training visits will occur at Gh Fitlab.
Treatment Comparison for Undergraduate College Students With Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic Brain InjuryConcussion1 moreUp to 28% of undergraduate college students report a suspected history of traumatic brain injury. Following traumatic brain injury, college students fail and repeat more courses and have lower grade point averages. Further complicating this problem may be the fact that college students lack knowledge of traumatic brain injury definition, its associated symptoms, and individuals involved in post-injury management. In this project, the investigators propose to compare the use of an established treatment model (i.e., the Dynamic Coaching Model) to a novel protocol (i.e., the Apprenticeship Approach) that includes explicit instruction about traumatic brain injury in college students with this population. The investigators will use a group comparison design to examine the efficacy of this instructional component. This work incorporates findings from educational psychology and speech-language pathology (e.g., the included instructional materials adhere to the principles of adult learning). As such, this work will advance the field's basic understanding of currently recommended treatment components and will systematically examine the effects of incorporating explicit instruction into an existing treatment model.
Comparison of Two Group Wellness Interventions in TBI Partner Caregivers
Traumatic Brain InjuryPartner CaregiverThe purpose of this research study is to compare the effect of two different types of group wellness interventions for partner caregivers of individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). The study is designed to evaluate how well these treatments can help TBI partner caregivers improve approach/avoidance behaviors.
Doxycycline in Acute Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic Brain Injuryevaluate the impact of Doxycycline on both clinical outcome and blood levels of NSE in patients with TBI.
Restorative Neuromodulation for Upper Extremity Functions
Traumatic Brain InjuryCervical Spinal Cord InjuryThe objective of this research study is to find the efficacy of trans-spinal electrical stimulation, a non-invasive neurostimulation method to modulate the functions of spinal cord neurocircuits, on improving upper-extremity functions such as reaching and grasping in individuals suffering with traumatic brain injury (TBI) or cervical spinal cord injury (SCI); and to find the physiological changes in the neuromuscular systems after this new intervention with high-resolution electrophysiology and biomedical imaging.
Efficacy and Tolerability of Erenumab in the Prophylactic Treatment of Persistent Post-Traumatic...
Post-Traumatic HeadacheMild Traumatic Brain Injury1 moreAn exploratory open-label study of PPTH patients to study the efficacy and tolerability of erenumab in the prophylactic treatment of persistent headache attributed to mild traumatic injury to the head. Approximately 100 subjects will be included to erenumab 140 mg. Patients who have participated in study with prior provocation (Ethics Committee of the Capital Region of Denmark (H-1801147 and H-18050498) and who have consented to be contacted will primarily be included. The study will begin February 2019 and is expected to last one year. Patients responding to advertisement (see add) will be contacted by phone.
Restoration vs. Compensation in Neurovisual Rehabilitation of Visual Field Defects
HemianopiaBrain Injuries1 moreVisual field defects (VFD) are a frequent effect of cerebral lesions especially after posterior cerebral artery stroke. The present study was conducted to compare effects of vision restoration training (VRT) and compensation training (Visual Exploration Training, VET) on visual field performance.
Strategy Game Supporting Goal Management Training Intervention
Acquired Brain InjuryExecutive Dysfunction1 moreMany brain-injured patients referred for outpatient rehabilitation have difficulties with planning, problems solving, and reasoning. These difficulties can be characterized as executive deficits, which can vary from relatively mild to rather severe. Executive deficits lead to real-life everyday disorganization and difficulties in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL tasks). Goal Management Training (GMT) is a successful treatment for executive deficits and helps to structure activities in daily life. GMT entails learning and applying an algorithm, in which a daily task is subdivided into multiple steps to handle executive difficulties of planning, and problem solving. Patients are taught compensatory strategies not to strengthen the executive functions, but to enable them to minimize disabilities and participation problems and to function more independently in daily life. The currently implemented GMT treatment in the Netherlands is aimed at relearning two specific tasks. However, to adopt the GMT strategy and ensure maximal profitability for patients, they have to learn to use the algorithm in different situations and tasks, which requires a comprehensive, time-consuming and thus labour-intensive treatment. Along with this, brain games become increasingly attractive as an (add-on) intervention, most notably in an effort to develop home-based personalized care, and because of their machine learning algorithms which tailors the game to the level of the individual player. Until now, however, the rationale behind brain games is based on what can be considered the restorative approach (i.e. strengthening of executive problems) rather than practicing compensatory strategies, with no transfer to improvements in daily life functioning. The present study fills a gap in the literature by investigating a new developed treatment that incorporates GMT and a treatment supporting strategy game in a pilot sample of brain injured patients. The primary objective of this pilot study is to obtain an efficacy estimate and investigate the feasibility of GMT with a new game that incorporates strategy training in improving executive functions in a pilot sample of brain-injured patients. This study investigates usability and acceptability of our new developed GMT treatment to brain-injured patients in the chronic phase (>3 months post-onset), and obtains an efficacy estimate, focusing on transfer of treatment effects to untrained (instrumental) activities of daily living. Chronic brain-injured patients will be allocated to the game-supported GMT treatment or to an information group using block randomization. It will be an assessor blind study in which researchers responsible for assessing or analyzing data will be blind for the received treatment.
TMS-fNIRS Personalized Dosing
Post Traumatic Stress DisorderTraumatic Brain InjuryThe intent of this study is to establish technical feasibility in a clinical population (PTSD, with or without mild TBI) of personalized TMS-fNIRS technology. Thereby demonstrating the utility of transcranial magnetic stimulation - functional near-infrared spectroscopy (TMS-fNIRS) technology as a direct measure of frontal brain activity, potentially replacing the indirect motor threshold procedure that may lead to improper dosing of TMS. Personalized TMS-fNIRS technology will guide therapy for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI)