Active clinical trials for "Cognitive Dysfunction"

Cognitive complications, that is problems with thinking and memory, are incredibly common after surgery, occurring in 10-50% of all older surgical patients. These complications can take different forms, but one of the most common is postoperative delirium (POD), a short-term state of confusion. In addition to being stressful for patients and their families, POD is linked to longer hospital stays, increased costs, higher mortality rates and other problems after surgery. Despite this, POD is often not recognized by doctors and there are currently no effective medications to treat POD. However, simple strategies such as helping patients to sleep properly and remain hydrated, have been shown to help. This study is testing if a delirium-reduction program will reduce postoperative delirium (POD) in older surgical patients. The investigators will first test memory and thought processes before surgery to find people who are most likely to develop POD. Once these people have been identified, they will be enrolled in a program which includes recommendations for their care team (e.g. surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses) as well as educational materials for them and their family related to things that can be done to prevent delirium. By identifying at-risk patients and making sure that their doctors and caregivers are aware of how to prevent delirium, the investigators expect that this study will make surgery safer for older surgical patients.

INTRODUCTION: Cognitive dysfunction is a frequent adverse event in the postoperative period, especially in elderly patients. The tests commonly used for the detection of postoperative cognitive dysfunction are time-consuming and with variable sensitivity and specificity and difficult routine use. Applying a difficult battery of cognitive tests decreases the viability of adopting measures to increase preoperative cognitive reserve and methods for prevention, diagnosis and rehabilitation of cases of Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction (POCD), it is desirable to search for alternative methods diagnoses.

The ACE Trial, funded by the National Institute on Ageing/National Institutes of Health (NIH), is a multicenter clinical trial. The ACE Trial will determine if taking the dietary supplement Equol could slow the progression of stiffening of the arteries, small blood vessel disease in the brain and memory decline. Equol is a soy-based supplement that has plant estrogen-like compounds in it. Equol is a metabolite of soy isoflavone. Our studies in Japan and other studies suggest that Equol may slow mechanisms related to memory decline. No previous studies in the United States have tested the effect of Equol on these mechanisms or memory decline. Supplementation of Equol in the ACE Trial is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, are recruiting participants. The ACE Trial will ask participants to complete 7 clinic visits over a two-year period. The participants are asked to take Equol tablets daily for 24 months. Clinic procedures include Pulse Wave Velocity (to measure arterial stiffness), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the brain and tests of awareness and thinking.

This study will test whether consuming blueberry powder 20g/d for 24 weeks can improve memory and other cognitive function and alter serum biomarkers of brain injury among older adults.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about how genetics and the response to stress predicts cognitive decline in individuals with mild cognitive impairment. The main question[s] it aims to answer are: Does the hormone response to acute stress predict the degree of cognitive impairment following acute stress? Do genes associated with the risk for Alzheimer's disease influence the relationship between stress hormone response to stress and cognitive impairment following stress? Do cognitive impairment following acute stress and genes associated with the risk for Alzheimer's disease predict cognitive decline and change in biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease 2 years later? Participants will have 3 in-person study visits. The first 2 will occur at baseline and the 3rd visit will occur 2 years later. During the visits, participants will provide blood and saliva samples, undergo a 10-minute social stress procedure, complete questionnaires, and take tests of memory and other thinking skills. Someone who knows the participant (a "study partner") will be asked questions about the participant's daily functioning at the first and 3rd study visits.

The purpose of this study is to develop and explore the effects of virtual reality based natural environment intervention programs on improving attention, emotion, and cognitive function of older people. The study has three stage. The first stage is to develop and verify the effects of virtual natural environment on attention recovery and emotional recovery of institutional elders. The second stage is to evaluate the attention recovery and emotional effects of different types of virtual natural environments on institutional elders. The third stage is to test effects of the virtual natural environment intervention program improved attention, cognitive function, anxiety and depression in the institutionalized elders compared with the control group.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the improving effects of ω-3 fatty acid from fish oil combined with polyphenolic extract from pine bark (PE) on cognitive functions and biological parameters in healthy people aged 55 to 75.

The goal of this interventional study is to compare in community dwelling elderly people the effects of two physical activity programs to prevent accident falls : "SILVER XIII EQUILIBRE" program and "VIVIFRAIL" program, on several risks factors such as executive functions and functional capacities. Participants will perform a 1 hour physical activity session during 10 weeks and effects will be measured using a multidimensional test battery. "SILVER XIII EQUILIBRE" program contains cognitive-motor exercises where participants have to perform two tasks simultaneously such as answering math questions while walking whereas "VIVIFRAIL" program contains multifactorial exercises such as walking, balance training and resistance training in single-task condition. The main question it aims to answer is : • Does physical activity enriched with simultaneous cognitive exercises enhances the effects ?

Anterior temporal epilepsy is the most frequent form of focal epilepsy (more than 50% of focal epilepsies). The epilepsy is drug-resistant when epileptic seizures persist despite antiepileptic treatment (25% of cases). In this case, it is possible to offer a surgical solution to the patient: an anterior temporal lobectomy. This surgery consists of removing the entire portion of the temporal lobe responsible for epilepsy (epileptogenic zone), that is to say a major part of the temporal pole, the hippocampus and the ventral anterior temporal lobe (vATL). The goal of the surgery is to lead to a disappearance of the seizures while preserving the functions of the patient. This is why a pre-surgical assessment is systematically carried out in order to locate the epileptic focus and to predict the risks of neurological and cognitive deficits. The vATL is of particular interest because it is a highly functional region, involved in naming, semantic processing and face recognition. A resection of this region by anterior lobectomy can therefore impact these functions and lead to cognitive deficits (for example, up to 65% decline in naming), which can be disabling in the lives of patients, even if they are free from seizures. One of the major challenges of epilepsy surgery is therefore to predict the postoperative neuropsychological outcome. The prediction of the neuropsychological outcome of the post-surgery patient is largely based on the mapping of functional regions preoperatively, carried out by functional MRI (fMRI), or by electrical stimulation carried out during intracerebral exploration by StereoElectroEncephalography (SEEG). However, current techniques have drawbacks. Electrical stimulations are based on an invasive exploration (SEEG), are time-consuming and sometimes difficult to interpret. The fMRI sequences used in clinical routine do not make it possible to visualize the entire vATL region because of artifacts related to the auditory canal. Thus, the signal is strongly diminished in this region, rendering a large area of the vATL invisible. This results in insufficient visualization of activated vATL regions when performing tasks such as naming, semantic processing, and face recognition. Important functional regions can therefore be removed during surgery and negatively impact the patient's neuropsychological outcome. In the CARTA study, original methods are associated in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in vATL. On the one hand, the Multi-Band sequence, an innovative fMRI sequence, will be used. On the other hand, a particular method of presentation of visual stimuli will be used, called fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS: Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation), during which the stimuli are presented periodically (fixed frequency). Individually, these methods improve vATL (signal enhancement) exploration. The investigators assume that the combination of the two methods may have a potentiating effect, compared to the standard SMS (Simultaneous Multi-Slice) sequence. fMRI exploration will not influence the surgical management of the patient included in the study because it is the beginning of the development of this technique, but could be used, in the longer term, to guide the surgeries of epileptic patients. Thus, the goal of this study is to precisely map the vATL, using innovative methods in fMRI. This mapping will make it possible to study the cerebral functions of the vATL involved in naming, semantic processing and face recognition, and ultimately improve the postoperative neuropsychological prognosis of epileptic patients.

To evaluate the effect of 12 months of supplementation with a probiotic (probiotic plus prebiotic; 2 capsules per day) on relative change (%) in total volumetric bone density (measured using high resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography [HR-pQCT]) of the distal tibia.