Brain Balance Study
Traumatic Brain InjuryA moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurring in early or middle adulthood might have long-lasting effects on the brain that can accelerate the decline of physical and cognitive function in older age. The proposed study seeks to better understand the implications of aging with a TBI, in order to help Veterans maintain their health and independence. The overarching hypothesis of this new line of research is that participants who experienced a moderate TBI in early or middle adulthood (at least 15 years prior to study enrollment) will have poorer performance on balance and cognitive tests, despite self-reporting no persistent motor or cognitive impairment from the TBI. The investigators also seek to evaluate the potential for practice-based learning and improvement of complex balance tasks in this population, to gain experience for conducting future rehabilitation studies. The long term goal of this line of research is to design rehabilitative and lifestyle interventions to preserve brain health and function in Veterans who have previously experienced a TBI.
Development and Validation of a Structured Tele-rehabilitation Programme of Brain Injured Patients...
Brain InjuryVascular2 moreThe goal of this research project is to develop a tele-rehabilitation programme, which will constitute an original care pathway for brain damaged patients. It will aim to improve their impairments, activities and social participation. The programme will deliver a therapeutic education and self-education programme targeting the upper and lower limbs, and will assess the patients by means of a diary and self-evaluation questionnaires.
Mobilising Patients With Severe Brain Injury in Intensive Care
Brain Injury Traumatic SevereSubarachnoid Hemorrhage1 moreIntroduction Patients with severe brain injury are often restricted to bed rest during the early period of brain injury which may lead to unwanted secondary complications. There is lack of evidence of when to initiate the first mobilisation. The Sara Combilizer® is an easy and efficient tool for mobilising patients with severe injuries, including brain injury. Through a randomised cross-over trial the investigators will investigate the impact of early mobilisation on patients with severe acquired brain injury caused by traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid brain injury or intracranial haematoma. The investigators hypothesise that mobilisation using the Sara Combilizer® does not affect partial oxygenation of brain tissue.
Cognitive Support Technology for Postsecondary Students With Traumatic Brain Injuries
TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)This study will fill important knowledge gaps in the availability of best practices that use innovative methods to integrate the cognitive and vocational needs of students with TBI who will be transitioning from 2- and 4-year postsecondary education to employment. Best practices exist from the assistive technology (AT) field to help people compensate for cognitive impairments, and from the vocational rehabilitation (VR) field to enhance employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. However, these practices have not been integrated to provide needed supports and services to improve the employment outcomes of students with TBI. The study's goal is to expand the availability of innovative practices by testing the efficacy of a technology-driven, long-term, and resource-rich individualized support program that merges assistive technology for cognition and vocational rehabilitation practices. The end products will include technology application guidelines, training and procedural manuals, and resource information that rehabilitation professionals and students with TBI can utilize to enhance technology and mentoring proficiency, academic success, self-determination, and long-term career success for students with TBI.
Biofeedback Gait Retraining for Stiff Knee Gait Correction
Brain InjuryThe research team has developed a visual kinematic biofeedback system which is designed to help children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (CP) correct a pattern of reduced knee extension in terminal swing and early stance. The system provides real-time feedback on the knee angle pattern during walking on a treadmill. From a pilot study on children with CP, the investigators observed that when the system was used in children who have stiff knee gait (SKG), training with knee feedback alone could lead to an increase in hip flexion which in turn led to limited normalization of the knee pattern through the whole gait cycle. This study, funded by the NIDILRR Switzer grant (PI: X Liu, Ph.D.), seeks to address the question of whether a training design with feedback on both the knee and hip joints would reduce this tendency to generate unintended changes in hip joint motion, and in doing so also improve convergence to the intended knee joint pattern. This study will test ten children and young adults with brain injury who have SKG and examine their short term adaptations to two types of kinematic feedback training: feedback training on the knee alone (condition B) and sequential switched feedback training on the knee and the hip (condition A). An additional sensor placed on the pelvis will be added to the current feedback system for measurement and feedback on the hip joint angle. Software enhancements will also be made with methods that will allow study and description of adaptations in measures of inter-limb symmetry during training. The participants will visit twice with a 2-week washout period between the two visits. Five participants will first undergo condition B in the first visit and then condition A in the second visit, while the other five participants will start with condition A in the first visit and then undergo condition B in the second visit. To compare the effects of the conditions on normalizing the joint angle trajectories, the knee and hip kinematics will be collected and analyzed in both the conditions. To investigate the coordination of lower limb segments under feedback training, relative phase measures will be analyzed on the hip and the knee. To examine whether participants adapt to the feedback retraining in terms of improvement in gait quality, symmetry ratios will be analyzed.
Evaluation of the Impact of the AVanCer Program Provided by the ARRPAC Day Center
StrokeBrain Injury1 moreIn France, more than 150,000 strokes occur each year. Stroke is a major risk factor for dependency, representing the leading cause of acquired non-traumatic disability in adults. Head injuries, which are also very frequent, can leave similar neuropsychiatric sequelae. These events are brutal and their physical, psychological, emotional, social and financial consequences disrupt the lives of patients and their families. Thanks to improved access to thrombolysis and thrombectomy for the management of acute stroke, the prognosis has been profoundly improved. Nevertheless, the increase in post-stroke survival and the evolution of the type of after-effects require the development of support systems dedicated to these post-stroke patients. The same issues are raised for people who have suffered a head injury with similar consequences that require specialised care. Currently, health care is well structured for the acute phase and there is an improvement in the provision of care in specialised rehabilitation services, but the dedicated medico-social provision for people returning home remains insufficient despite the significant needs. The ARRPAC association (Accompaniment, Rehabilitation, Respite after Stroke and Cerebral Palsy) is setting up a new comprehensive medico-social support programme in Lyon (AVanCer programme, opening in June 2022) to improve the autonomy and adaptation capacities of patients and to relieve the social and psycho-affective burden of carers. This experimental day centre, which complements functional rehabilitation and recurrence prevention care, offers adults with brain injury sequelae and their carers therapeutic education programmes, adapted physical activity, social and cognitive remediation and therapeutic workshops, as well as a place for patients and their carers to exchange information and listen. To achieve its ambition, ARRPAC and the AVanCer programme must be integrated into the existing support offer, create partnerships with care structures and evaluate its added value to ensure its sustainability. In case of efficiency and demonstrated benefits for patients, carers and the health system, such a structure could be deployed in other territories. This study evaluates the implementation of the AVanCer programme in terms of its effect on the target audience, participants' experience and implementation according to the REAIM evaluative framework (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance).
Low-Field Bedside Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Pediatric Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation...
Feasibility and Safety of a Low-field MRIAcute Brain Injury1 moreThe primary object of the study is to further characterize safety and feasibility of low-field bedside MRI in pediatric and neonatal ECMO patients. To perform imaging assessments of an early-stage magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system on patients using low field magnetic strength. Collect qualitative data from the image assessments to optimize device performance using a low field magnetic resonance imaging device in a simulated use environment; Collect qualitative data from the image assessments using a high field magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography and ultrasound devices. Generate anonymized image data for post-acquisition evaluation, performance measuring and planning for subsequent study size
Blood Biomarkers to Improve Management of Children With Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic Brain InjuryMild traumatic brain injury (TBI), defined by a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 13 to 15, is the cause of many consultations in paediatric emergency departments (1), even though it is a rare cause of acute complication: approximately 10% of children present with intracranial lesions (ICL) on the CT scan and less than 1% require neurosurgical intervention (2). Although ICLs remain a serious complication requiring rapid diagnosis, brain CT scans, the gold standard diagnostic test, cannot be performed routinely because many children would be unnecessarily exposed to ionising radiation associated with an increased risk of cancer (3). In recent years, several clinical decision rules for the management of mTBI have therefore been developed with the aim of identifying children at high or very low risk of ICL in order to better target CT scan indications. Despite this, the rate of CT scans performed has remained high, up to 35%, and has not decreased with the application of these clinical decision rules (4). Furthermore, even though the majority of children and adolescents recover quickly after mTBI, nearly 30% will present symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, asthenia, memory, concentration or sleep disorders persisting beyond one month with a possible impact on their quality of life (5). Thus, there is a need to develop new strategies to (i) limit the use of CT scans while minimising the risk of late diagnosis of ICL, (ii) identify children with a higher risk of adverse outcome and/or post-concussive symptoms. One of the most promising strategies is the use of brain-based blood biomarkers. This study therefore aims to provide new knowledge on two of them, GFAP and UCH-L1 (6,7), in particular by using an automated test combining them (the VIDAS® TBI test developed by bioMérieux) in order to improve the management of CT in the paediatric population at the diagnostic and prognostic levels.
TMS-EEG for Cortical Excitability
Acquired Brain InjuryStroke2 moreThis research study is being done to look at the safety and diagnostic benefit of conducting an TMS(transcranial magnetic stimulation)-EEG measured before and after a brief experimental stimulation session using investigational devices repetitive TMS or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
Non-invasive Nerve Stimulation for PTSD and Sleep
Post Traumatic Stress DisorderTraumatic Brain InjuryIn this study, our objective is to determine the effect of two different nerve stimulation types in changing sleep architecture.