Active clinical trials for "Alzheimer Disease"

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) could change cortical excitability measured by off-line EEG in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients.

The purpose of this study is to assess the modulating effect of galantamine on circadian rhythm in patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are often reported in institutions for the elderly. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a staff education intervention to manage BPSD in older people with a diagnosis of dementia.

The aims of this study are to 1) examine the effects of AZD3480 and donepezil on the blood concentrations of each other and 2) assess the safety and tolerability of the combined administration of AZD3480 with donepezil.

Cerebral functioning changes with age in order to respond to the impacts of different external and internal factors on the brain, and more generally on the human body. Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition proposes that during life the brain develops specific neural networks to handle with cognitive activities. When these networks are impaired due to factors that damage brain structure and/or brain functioning, the brain adapts and elaborates new networks to cope with this situation. A cognitive reserve built throughout life and an appropriated care such as for example cognitive training, are in the centre of this model because they are involved in building these networks. In general, studies exploring cognitive training in normal aging and in patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer's disease have shown some benefits of the training on cognitive functioning. It has been shown not only that the cognitive training improves older adults' cognition, but also that these effects last for a long time and positively influence older people everyday activities. In fact, the benefits from memory training were observed 5 years after the end of the training and those of reasoning and of speed of processing even after 10 years. In addition, majority of the participants declared to notice improvement of their everyday life. Concerning Alzheimer's disease, several studies have observed positive results of cognitive training although there are some controversies about its' effects. Numerous studies point out that for cognitive training being the most efficient, the intervention has to take place as early as possible, preferentially in a premorbid stage of the disease and that it is important to propose trainings that minimize the withdrawal. In this sense, the importance of using computer based training was put forward because it allows the elaboration of multiple exercises with playful aspect and more importantly it can adapt on line the difficulty of the exercises to the patient's performance. However, if it is commonly admitted that computer based training has an important role in physician's, psychologist's or speech therapist's office less is known about the efficiency of this type of training performed at distance, at the patient's place of residence. It seems probable that to propose distance training as an additional training to that performed in a practitioner's office would increase training benefits. To investigators knowledge this was not investigated in a systematic way with Alzheimer's disease patients. The more important advantages of a such additional training are: (1) reduction of patients' travelling, (2) increased flexibility of training scheduling and (3) increased frequency of training sessions per week. Thus, in the present study investigators will examine in a systematic way, whether the distance training, as an additional training to this performed in practitioner's office, brings incremental short- and long-term benefits coming from cognitive training in mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease patients. Investigators second objective is to determine what would be the best frequency per week of such an additional training.

Medical progress and modification of lifestyles have prolonged life expectancy, despite the development of chronic diseases. The support and care are often provided by a network of informal caregivers composed of family, friends, and neighbors. They became essential to help maintening the elderly persons to live at home. It has been demonstrated that the importance and the diversity of informal tasks may jeopardize their own physical, mental and social well-being. The aim of the Informal Carers of Elderly Cohort is to define, through a longitudinal study of their life course, the profiles of caregivers of patients with a diagnosis of one of the following diseases: cancer (breast, prostate, colon-rectum), neuro-degenerative diseases (Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and similar diseases), neuro-vascular diseases (Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA)), Age-related Macular Degeneration(AMD) and heart disease (heart failure), aged ≥ 60 years old and living in Burgundy or Franche-Comte. By following the different phases of the caregiving relationship from the announcement of the diagnosis, it will be possible to assess the quality of life of caregivers and evaluate the implementation of a pragmatic social action to help informal caregivers through a randomized intervention trial nested in the cohort. Thanks to an analytical and longitudinal definition of the profiles of informal caregivers, this study could gather precise information on their life courses and their health trajectory by identifying the consequences associated with the concept of their role of aid in care. In addition, the randomized intervention trial will explore the efficacy, in terms of quality of life, and efficiency of a social action to support the caregivers. These data will allow to identify strategies that could be used to improve the existing sources of aid and to propose new approaches to help caregivers. This study will provide the opportunity to identify the most relevant means of support and to give an impulse for new healthcare policies.

The imdazoline2 binding site (I2BS) is known to reside inside astrocytes. Changes in the numbers of I2BS in post mortem tissue has implicated them in a range of psychiatric conditions such as depression and addiction, along with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's chorea. Preclinical studies have also demonstrated functional interactions with the opioid system, where I2BS ligands have been shown to affect tolerance to morphine and alleviate some of the morphine withdrawal syndrome in rats. Recently the I2BS and I2BS ligands have been shown to have some interesting analgesic effects in different models of pain. The location of I2BS on astrocytic glial cells and the possibility that they may in some way regulate glial fibrillary acidic protein have led to increased interest into the role of I2BS and I2BS ligands in conditions characterised by marked gliosis. The number of I2BS has been shown to increase in Alzheimer's disease post mortem, and it has also been suggested that I2BS may be a marker for the severity and malignancy of human glioblastomas. The lack of suitable imaging tools for the I2BS has meant that information regarding the number and distribution of I2BS in the brain has come from preclinical species and in vitro post-mortem studies. The recent development of [11C]BU99008 as a suitable PET ligand to quantify I2BS in vivo, enables the direct quantification of I2BS availability and regional distribution in the living human brain. In this study the investigators plan to utilise [11C]BU99008 to quantify the regional brain availability of I2BS in the human brain in vivo using PET.

This is a Phase 1 placebo-controlled biomarker study of NP001 in individuals with Alzheimer's Disease.

The STIM-EHPAD study (for stimulation in nursing home) aims to evaluate the short and medium term effectiveness of staff education as a non-pharmacological intervention to manage apathy in older people with a diagnosis of dementia. Primary efficacy criteria: Apathy Inventory clinician score changes Secondary efficacy criteria: Apathy Inventory patient and caregiver version changes, Observation scale changes, frequency and severity of the other BPSD using the NPI, qualitative analysis of the nursing home staff behavioural changes

The primary purpose of this study is to assess biomarker known as amyloid beta peptide 40 (Ab40) in Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF), following a single oral dose of PAZ-417 in subjects with Alzheimer Disease (AD). This study will also consider another biomarker amyloid beta peptide 42 (Ab42) in Cerebrospinal Fluid in subjects with Alzheimer Disease and assess the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetic profile of PAZ-417 in both plasma and Cerebrospinal Fluid in these subjects.