Active clinical trials for "Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis"

This study will look at whether Pimozide may help to slow the progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. 100 people from several Canadian centres with ALS who have provided their consent will be randomly assigned into one of 2 groups. The first group will receive a dose of up to 2mg of Pimozide per day and the second group will receive placebo (lactose tablets). Subjects will be assigned randomly (like by a flip of a coin) to receive either Pimozide 2 mg per day or placebo tablets. There will be a fifty-fifty chance of receiving Pimozide or placebo. Participants will be on study medication up to 22 weeks, and on study up to 26 weeks. There are 8 clinic visits and 1 phone visit over the course of the Treatment Phase of the study. The second phase which is Observational, is optional with follow-up for up to 5 years from the end of the Treatment Phase.

The purpose of this study is to test the safety and effectiveness of an autologous bone marrow-derived stem/progenitor cells infusion in the subjects with diagnosed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The efficacy and safety are evaluated when YAM80 is administered orally to the patients of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

The purpose of this study is to determine the muscle strength of a muscle in the thigh after 12 weeks of home exercise.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease affecting motoneurons, with a prevalence around 5/100.000. Respiratory muscle involvement is a major feature in ALS and remains the main prognostic factor. Timing and rate of progression of this respiratory muscle involvement is also highly variable among individuals. Respiratory manifestations justify a careful follow up including clinical evaluation, pulmonary function tests and blood gases. Prognostic value of respiratory muscle assessment has been clearly demonstrated in ALS, although several cut off values have been published. The clinical benefit of non invasive ventilation (NIV) is well established in ALS, but the optimal criteria for its initiation remain debated . The 1999 consensus for NIV selected classical criteria to consider NIV in patients with respiratory symptoms suggesting hypoventilation: daytime hypercapnia (PaCO2 > 45 mmHg), nocturnal SaO2 < 89 % more than 5 consecutive minutes and for progressive neuromuscular disorders (NMD) (mainly ALS), a vital capacity (VC) < 50 % pred or a PImax < 60 cmH2O. Besides daytime clinical and PFT assessment, nocturnal evaluation is essential in ALS. The prevalence of sleep apnea ranges from 16 % to 76 %. Transcutaneous PCO2 (tcPCO2) is an attractive technique to evaluate non invasively nocturnal hypoventilation. The technique is well validated in different settings. Its use in neuromuscular disorders (NMD) is recent. In particular one study has demonstrated a high predictive value of tcPCO2 for the development of daytime hypoventilation within 1 year. To our knowledge, this technique has not been specifically assessed in ALS. There is a potential role for nocturnal PtcCO2 monitoring in the close follow up of ALS patients. Indeed, a close respiratory follow up of ALS patients is essential to determine the optimal timing of NIV, avoiding the occurence of unexpected acute respiratory failure.

The Novus system intended to provide ankle dorsiflexion and knee flexion or extension in individuals with foot drop and thigh muscle weakness, following an upper motor neuron injury or disease. The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the usability of the Novus system among these patients and to gain subjects' feedback regarding the device when used on a daily basis.The secondary objective is to obtain information about the performance of the system as a gait assistive device and to evaluate the subject's Quality of Life while using the system.

This observational study will use new smartwatch technology to continuously and remotely monitor the health of ALS patients and healthy controls over time. This information will be used to develop digital biomarkers for ALS.

This is a pilot study to evaluate a potential imaging biomarker for aiding diagnosis and monitoring progression of ALS, based on a well established basic science pathway, published human autopsy data, preliminary data in ALS mutant mice, and our recently published data using brain PET scans to image the metabotropic glutamate receptor type 5 (mGluR5) in healthy human volunteers.

The purpose of this study is to find out if supervised exercise training using a treadmill with partial weight support is safe and has an impact on gait and function of persons with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The purpose of this study is to study the transporters of serotonin and dopamine in ALS patients in relation with the clinical phenotype, i.e., patients without stiffness, patients with pyramidal stiffness, patients with mixed (pyramidal and extra pyramidal) stiffness. For such a goal the investigators will use SPECT to compare the binding of two specific tracers in ALS patients and in matched healthy controls.