Active clinical trials for "Brain Injuries"

Repetitive blast exposure has been shown to lead to more severe neurobehavioral impairments versus a single exposure. Blast-induced Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) can lead to short- and long-term adverse outcomes Even mild brain injuries can impair neurocognitive performance, and repeated injuries can amplify negative outcomes. Service members with repeated exposure to low-level blasts as a necessary part of their job or training display altered neural activity during a memory task that is paralleled by a reduction in accuracy on neurocognitive memory tasks. As a result, it is important to monitor service members that are exposed to multiple blast-generated mTBIs to allow the earliest identification of acute or chronic brain and body insult and provide individualized measures of time to recovery. While TBI is clinically diagnosable, the methods of diagnosis have up to now been typically expensive and immobile, and treatments and interventions sparse. The investigators will conduct a longitudinal assessment of mTBI brain biomarkers by collecting repeated measures of FDA approved mTBI brain injury biomarkers, correlated with sound and blast exposure, as well as continuous monitoring through smart watches (activity, sleep, biometrics, calorie expenditure, balance) and analyte data through analyte sensors (glucose, lactate, ketones). Study data will be organized into categories and presented to participants daily within the application and will be securely stored within the application. At the completion of the study, participants will be provided with the study data digitally within the mobile application and study data will also be provided to the credentialed unit medical provider to enable it to be ported to the participants' electronic medical record. This study will create a continuous record of blast overpressure and sound exposures and correlate those to the participants health state over the course of several 9-week courses. This will enable an assessment of individualized susceptibility to brain injury as well as providing novel data on time to recovery. The investigators hope to develop dynamic and accurate risk profiles that are individual and will lead to further understanding of how to protect participants from mTBI (mild TBI) events.

Telerehabilitation is a service delivery method that has grown substantially in recent years. It has both advantages and disadvantages in comparison to clinic-based services. For example, telerehabilitation is advantageous for people residing in locations in which specialized rehabilitation services are scarce; however, it has the disadvantage of being dependent on reliable internet connections that are not available in all locations. Also, some people prefer the privacy afforded by receiving treatment in their home, but other people prefer the interaction with other clients with similar challenges afforded by attending sessions in clinic-based settings. Other questions about advantages and disadvantages of telerehabilitation remain unexplored. One such question is the focus of this research and concerns the effect of receiving post-acute telerehabilitation services versus clinic-based services on the general well-being and quality of life experienced by people with traumatic brain injury. The study purpose is to compare changes in wellness and quality of life occurring over a four-month period during which people with traumatic brain injury receive post-acute services either via telerehabilitation or at an outpatient facility.

Head trauma is a frequent reason for consultation in the emergency room. The CT scan is the reference examination allowing rapid management of the patient. However, CT examinations are among the diagnostic examinations with the highest exposure to ionizing radiation. The study investigators have previously implemented "ultra-low dose" (ULD) acquisitions for several pathologies with an effective dose level similar to that of a standard radiographic examination. These ULD acquisitions are now routinely used in our clinical practice for explorations of the thorax, spine, pelvis and proximal femurs, extremities. This study expands these ULD acquisitions to skull CT for detecting traumatic intracranial lesions. The study investigators hypothesize that it would be possible to search for intracranial lesions in patients with head trauma using ULD protocols, thereby reducing the doses delivered to the patient while maintaining sufficient image quality for the diagnosis.

The overall aim of the MAST trial is to define best practice in the use of anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) for patients following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The trial will consist of two parts. The first part aims to answer whether a shorter or a longer course of AEDs is better to prevent further seizures in patients who have started having seizures following TBI (MAST - duration). The second part aims to answer whether a 7-day course of either Phenytoin or Levetiracetam should be used for patients with a serious TBI to prevent seizures from starting (MAST- prophylaxis).

The issue of anesthetics neurotoxicity is one of the most discussed topics in pediatric anesthesiology, thus it opens the question of the safety of commonly used anesthetics in the pediatric patient. Preclinical studies have shown that anesthetics can have a toxic effect on the maturing brain of pups and cause cognitive impairment. In human medicine, the influence of anesthetics is studied by monitoring the psychomotor development of children who have undergone surgery under general anesthesia. Some work deals with laboratory evidence of brain damage due to general anesthesia, but none of the work deals with the observation of markers of brain damage in infants. The aim of this work is to examine the dynamics of changes in the concentrations of selected markers of brain damage in craniosynostosis operations under general anesthesia in infants in order to optimize perioperative management and the correct timing of surgery.

The overarching goal of this study is to improve understanding of the long-range natural history of TBI and post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) by extending follow-up of a previously enrolled cohort (TRACK-TBI) beyond the first 12 months after injury.

The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of visual and auditory distractions on SCAT5 scores. The study is designed to identify the effects of about 80 participants completing the SCAT5 in college-aged athletes. All participants will perform the same tasks in two settings (distracted and non-distracted). The central hypothesis is that there will be a significant association between distractions and a lower score on the SCAT5. The cognitive screening, neurological screen, and mBESS should showcase a decrease scores during the distracted environment.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability in trauma patients. As the primary injury cannot be reversed, management strategies must focus on preventing secondary injury by avoiding hypotension and hypoxia and maintaining appropriate cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP), which is a surrogate for cerebral blood flow (CBF). The goal should be euvolemia and avoidance of hypotension. The assessment of a patient's body fluid status is a challenging task for modern clinicians. The use of Ultrasonography to assess body fluids has numerous advantages. The concept of using lung ultrasound for monitoring the patient is one of the major innovations that emerged from recent studies. Pulmonary congestion may be semiquantified using lung ultrasound and deciding how the patient tolerates fluid. Inferior vena cava (IVC) sonography and point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become widely used as a tool to help clinicians prescribe fluid therapy. Common POCUS applications that serve as guides to fluid administration rely on assessments of the inferior vena cava to estimate preload and lung ultrasound to identify the early presence of extravascular lung water and avoid fluid over resuscitation In this study we will use the measurements of both lung and IVC together to guide fluid dosage in critically ill patients with TBI. We will also use ONSD as a mirror for intra-cranial pressure (ICP).

The study aims the assessment of endothelial glycocalyx (EG) degradation in deceased organ donors. There is a lack of organs for the transplantation program. By the description of the EG status, we can open room for organ optimization before transplantation and improve the organ function after transplantation in marginal donors.

The purpose of this study is to create a state-wide biorepository and resource center for cerebrovascular diseases in Florida, which will include collecting medical history information and blood from families affected by cerebrovascular disease. The information and blood samples collected may be used in future research for the study of cerebrovascular disease and to learn about, prevent or treat other health problems.