Active clinical trials for "Cognitive Dysfunction"

The investigators would like to conduct a double blind placebo-controlled prospective study to show the impact of a treatment combining a specific cognitive rehabilitation program and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors on executive function of young patients 3 months after a first symptomatic stroke. The secondary objectives will be to assess cognitive changes performance (executive but also non trained functions such as memory) before and after treatments and treatment effect on activity of daily living and on quality of life. The main objective of this study is to show the impact of this combined treatment on brain activation maps in VCI-ND patients in the post-acute phase (3 months) after a stroke. Treatment effect will be assessed by functional MRI (fMRI) while patients will be performing a specific executive task. The investigators hypothesize that the specific rehabilitation associated with acetylcholinestrase inhibitors treatment will focalize cerebral activation observed in fMRI, improve executive functions specifically, improve non trained cognitive functions (generalization effect).

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been linked to increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but little prospective evidence exists on the effects of OSA treatment in preclinical AD. The objective was to determine if CPAP treatment adherence, controlling for baseline differences, predicts cognitive and everyday function after 1 year in older adults with MCI and to determine effect sizes for a larger trial. The aim of the Mild Cognitive Impairment and Obstructive Sleep Apnea (Memories 1) trial was to determine whether CPAP treatment adherence, controlling for any baseline differences in OSA severity, ApoE4, and other previously identified demographic and patient factors, might predict cognitive and everyday function after 1 year in older adults with amnestic MCI.

The aim of this trial is to provide evidence that Actovegin has a symptomatic effect in subjects with post stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) during a six month treatment period compared to subjects administered placebo. Subjects received IV infusions whilst in hospital, and tablets once discharged. Subjects were followed up for a further six months after their treatment had been stopped to explore if the cognitive symptoms of the subjects treated with Actovegin showed sustained improvement. The trial also explored the possible prevention of dementia with Actovegin in patients who had suffered a recent ischaemic stroke, as well as the effect of Actovegin on other stroke outcomes. Safety information on Actovegin was collected.

The proposed randomized controlled trial will evaluate the effects of treadmill training augmented with virtual reality on fall risk. 300 older adults with a history of falls will be recruited to participate in this study. This will include older adults (n=100), patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (n=100), and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD)(n=100). Subjects will be randomly assigned to the intervention group (treadmill training with virtual reality) or to the active-control group (treadmill training without virtual reality). Each person will participate in a training program set in an outpatient setting 3 times per week for 6 weeks. Assessments will take place before, after, and 1 month and 6 months after the completion of the training.

This is a study of the effects of tDCS on smoking, craving for cigarettes, cognition, and psychiatric symptoms in schizophrenic patients who are current smokers or have a history of regular cigarette smoking. It assesses smoking with CO monitoring, nicotine and nicotine levels, and craving with QSU scale and response to craving slides. Cognition is measured by MCCB, symptoms are measured by PANSS and hallucination scale. This is a double-blind sham-controlled study with active tDCS 2ma or 20 minutes over 5 days, and sham tDCS for 40 seconds on each sham occasion.

This study is investigating the efficacy of computer-based cognitive exercises as a means of cognitive remediation in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) who are beginning the disease modifying pharmacotherapy Gileyna.

Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common dementing disorder of later life, is a major cause of disability and death in the elderly. Although a number of theoretical causes exist, the etiology of AD is still unknown. Consequently, the focus of treatments has been palliative, designed to ameliorate AD symptoms. Recent efforts, however, have revealed some surprising data suggesting that cholinesterase inhibitors (AchEIs), used over the last decade, and recently released memantine (an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist), may confer protection to neurons. Thus, they may offer a slowing of cognitive decline and/or improvement in behavioral symptoms associated with memory impairment. Over the last decade, it has been well documented that mild cognitive impairment (MCI) increases the risk of conversion to AD and that coincident depression and MCI (Dep-MCI) further increases the risk 2 to 3 fold. The primary focus of this line of investigation is to treat the very high risk to dement patient population with Dep-MCI, before they develop AD, in the hopes of delaying AD onset. Memantine had not been studied in DEP-MCI patients. Since treatment of these patients with combined antidepressant and AChEIs has been associated with cognitive improvement in pilot studies, we explore whether treatment of DEP-MCI with memantine in addition to antidepressant treatment would benefit cognitive performance and lead to a low rate of conversion to dementia. We evaluate the cognitive and antidepressant benefit of combined open-label es-citalopram and memantine treatment over 48 weeks in a DEP-CI sample.

The purpose of this study is to learn if activities that challenge the brain (mentally stimulating activities) can improve memory and other types of thinking in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment. The study will compare the effects of different methods of mental stimulation.

Patients with schizophrenia have problems in thinking, known as cognitive dysfunction. This appears to be responsible for their difficulties in social and occupational functioning. One particular cognitive function that may be important for schizophrenia is called context processing. This refers to the ability to properly use information in the environment to guide thinking and behavior so that it is appropriate to the present circumstance. Problems with this function may explain why patients with schizophrenia think and act in unusual ways, and often have problems managing aspects of their lives that healthy adults take for granted. This cognitive function depends on a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which shows impaired function in schizophrenia as well. Unfortunately, the biochemical aspects of this dysfunction are presently unknown, and it is not clear whether current psychiatric medications can improve this function. A recent FDA-approved medication that may improve this function is modafinil. Studies in animals and healthy adults show that this medication can improve cognitive functions which are related to context processing. We plan to study the effects of modafinil on context processing and the brain activity that underlies this function. We will use functional MRI and electrophysiology to examine the effects of modafinil, both after a single dose and after sustained (4 week) treatment. We predict that when patients receive modafinil they will perform better on cognitive tests and have improved activity in the regions of the brain that are responsible for these cognitive processes.

The purpose of this study is to find out if insulin, when administered as a "nasal spray" into the nasal passages, improves memory in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease.