Active clinical trials for "Cognitive Dysfunction"

Advancing age is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia which can lead to a rapid acceleration in both the healthcare costs and caregiver burden. There is a need to develop non-pharmacological and easily accessible modalities of support for the well-being and enhancing quality of life for individuals with dementia. There is evidence that music listening is associated with stress and anxiety reduction in older adults. Here, the investigators aim to assess the effects of music listening as provided by a novel digital music-based intervention (developed by LUCID) on mood, anxiety, and quality of life in individuals at the early stages of dementia. LUCID uses reinforcement learning machine learning to curate and personalize the musical playlist while incorporating monoaural theta auditory beat stimulation (ABS) into the music. The study will be conducted remotely with study hardware (tablets and Bluetooth speakers) being delivered to caregivers/participants. The study will take place over an 8- week period, with participants completing four 30 mins music or audiobook listening sessions per week. Pre and post-intervention assessments will be done via Zoom with the presence of a research staff member. The control condition consists of a randomized list of short audiobooks. The experimental condition consists of music and monoaural ABS curated by LUCID's AI system. The investigators hypothesize that the LUCID AI music curation system, compared to audiobooks, will be correlated with a greater reduction in measures of anxiety and agitation and an enhancement of mood and quality of life.

Some people who have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 can experience long-term effects from their infection, known as post COVID-19 conditions (PCC) or long COVID1. The medical circles often describe it as post-acute sequelae of Covid-19 (PASC). People with post-COVID conditions can have a wide range of symptoms that can last more than four weeks or even months after infection. Sometimes the symptoms can even go away or come back again. The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) listed a constellation of 19 symptoms related to post COVID-19. In research, brain fog is prominent among the most reported neurological symptoms which also include, numbness, tingling, headache, dizziness, blurred vision, tinnitus, and fatigue that last more than a year post-infection. Vielight Inc. has developed a compact and portable device named the "Vielight RX Gamma", which is suitable for home use. The intervention is based on the science of photobiomodulation (PBM) which utilizes certain light energy to modify cellular functions. The fundamental mechanisms of PBM are based on the absorption of photons by the mitochondria to modulate cellular functions. The Vielight Neuro RX Gamma delivers light of specific wavelengths (810 nm), power and duration to the brain/nasal cavity to achieve this. The biological process involves numerous interacting mechanisms that modulate bodily functions. One result of PBM is the benefits it could offer the post COVID-19 (long COVID) population. The Vielight Neuro RX Gamma emitting NIR might reduce inflammatory markers relevant to COVID-19 and since it pulses at 40 Hz can activate the non-inflammatory M2-genotype microglia to remove markers of Alzheimer disease, such as beta-amyloid and possibly tau deposits. Using Vielight Neuro RX Gamma, the same activation of non-inflammatory markers might occur with post COVID-19 (long-COVID) patient population as well as the reduction in the brain fog. This trial utilizes a completely remote and virtual design. It is a double blind randomized controlled trial that is expected to involve 36 participants who are confirmed to have Post- COVID cognitive impairment. Eighteen of the participants will be randomized to the active Vielight RX Gamma protocol, and the other eighteen participants will be randomized to the sham Vielight RX Gamma regimen. The trial will study patients over 120 days and ask them to track their symptoms in a daily survey.

Cognitive disorders are common after intensive care. Currently, their diagnosis is based on clinical tests. The investigators plan to study the relationship between different neurological blood biomarkers (cytokines, S100β protein, neuron specific enolase, total Tau protein and neurofilament light chain) and the occurrence of cognitive disorders during the three months following intensive care discharge.

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the effects of MitoQ supplementation in older adults and frail older adults with physical dysfunction and/or cognitive dysfunction. The main question[s] it aims to answer are: To compare vascular function, oxidative stress levels, and physical and cognitive function among older adults and frail older adults with physical and cognitive dysfunction To determine whether MitoQ supplementation has the potential to improve vascular function in central and cerebral vessels To determine whether MitoQ supplementation can enhance physical and cognitive capabilities.

The Anti-Aβ mAb CED Study is a prospective, longitudinal coverage with evidence development (CED) study using clinical data, patient assessments, and administrative claims data of the Medicare population, conducted in accordance to the National Coverage Determination (NCD) on Monoclonal Antibodies Directed Against Amyloid for the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

After almost 2 years of pandemic, the consequences of the post-COVID syndrome, or PASC (Post Acute-Sequelae of Sars-CoV-2), have become a major challenge in the management of affected patients, generating costs for health services. and insecurity regarding treatments for the sequelae, given the complex and still poorly understood pathophysiology of COVID-19. This troubling scenario raises important questions about the impact of COVID-19 on central nervous system sequelae, including the risk of cognitive decline in old age and progression to dementia. Therefore, studies that propose the possibility of treatment for this new clinical condition and that are free from systemic side effects, such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and cognitive treatment, are extremely important in the face of this scenario. In addition, the evaluation of the neural mechanisms underlying the cognitive alterations of the PASC syndrome and after the treatment using multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) becomes relevant in view of the lack of studies related to the topic. Therefore, the objective of this double-blind randomized clinical trial is to assess whether tDCS associated with cognitive training can improve symptoms in patients with persistent cognitive deficits that started between 1 and 6 months after the resolution of acute COVID-19 infection (PASC) compared to the sham (placebo) group, in addition to exploring the structural, microstructural, functional and modeled electric field changes associated with cognitive alterations due to PASC syndrome and tDCS combined with cognitive treatment. 60 patients aged between 18 and 70 years and with a positive diagnosis of mild to moderate COVID-19 in the last 6 months in relation to the time of entry into the study will be recruited. All of them will be pre-screened online and in person to confirm the cognitive dysfunction associated with PASC.

Loss of cognitive function after major surgery is a significant risk in older people. It can occur acutely in the days after surgery as delirium or in months to years later as a persistent reduction in brain function termed neurocognitive decline. Together these conditions are called post operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). They can be acutely distressing for patients and are associated with other problems after surgery. The causes of post operative cognitive dysfunction are poorly understood. Studies have been limited by a lack of biomarkers to predict which patients are at high risk of developing POCD. Research suggests silent strokes occurring during surgery and different sensitivities to anaesthetic medicines are associated with POCD. The project consists of a feasibility study to investigate markers that might predict people over 65 years old getting POCD. The first biomarker is a non-invasive monitor of anaesthetics effects on brain function called electroencephalography (EEG): The investigators will identify which EEG patterns predict delirium within five days surgery. The second set of biomarkers are two blood tests of proteins that increase after strokes: these are neurofilament light chains and tau proteins. The investigators will establish if these can be used to predict having POCD up to one year after surgery and long term cognitive impairment up to 5 years after surgery.

Global dementia prevalence is rising. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause, has devastating effects on people's quality of life. AD has a preclinical (pre-AD) period of 10-20 years when brain pathology silently progresses before any cognitive symptoms appear. Current tests for pre-AD are invasive, costly and unsuitable for screening at population level. Similar to screening for pre-diabetes and carcinoma in situ, it is important to detect AD at the preclinical stage in order to offer early interventions before the pathology progresses to the irrerversible degenerative stage. In the study, research will develop a new scalable test (TAS Test) by combining two innovative ideas: hand-movement tests to detect pre-AD >10 years before cognitive symptoms begin; and computer vision so people can "self-test" online using home computers. This unique approach builds on recent discoveries that hand-movement patterns change in pre-AD. The research team will use exquisitely precise computer vision methods to automatically analyse movement data from thousands of participants, and combine this with machine learning of overall motor-cognitive performance. The project team has access to 3 well-phenotyped cohorts, >10,000 existing participants and a cutting-edge assay for a blood AD biomarker, ptau181. The research team will develop a TAS Test algorithm to classify hand-movement and cognitive test data for pre-AD risk (p-taua181 levels) and determine TAS Test's precision to prospectively predict 5-year risks of cognitive decline and AD.

Dementia is the major cause of disability and dependency among older adults worldwide affecting memory, cognitive abilities and behavior, interfering with one's ability to perform daily lives activities. Although age is the strongest known risk factor for the onset of dementia, it is not a natural or inevitable consequence of aging. Dementia not only affects older people, since up to 9% of the cases appear before 65 years. The impact of dementia is highly important in financial terms also in human costs to countries, societies and individuals. Dementia is an umbrella term for several diseases, being Alzheimer's disease (AD) the most common form, contributing to 60-70% of cases. Other major forms include Lewy bodies Dementias (LBDs) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The role of the gastrointestinal microbiota in human brain development and function is an area of increasing interest and research. A large number of studies suggest that the gut microbiota can influence the brain, cognition and behavior of the patients, and also modulate brain plasticity, modifying brain chemistry via various mechanisms like neural, immune and endocrine Within these last two years some studies have showed differences in the microbiota of the AD patients from healthy controls. In this sense, increasing number of studies, most of them in animal models, support the notion that probiotics have significant benefit in maintaining homeostasis of the Central Nervous System. And recent studies try to replicate this finding in AD patients with controversial results. The main objective of DEM-BIOTA project is to improve the knowledge of the relationship between microbiota and dementia. DEM-BIOTA will explore the microbiota differences between dementias: AD, LBDs, that includes: Parkinson disease dementia (PDD) and Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) and FTD-behavioral variant, also in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to study the progression; in our context (Mediterranean diet and lifestyle) and characterize them in relation to neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms as well as patient functionality (dependency level). Moreover, the capacity of a probiotic compound in reverting or improving neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms and patient functionality in a sample of AD patients will be also studied.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is known for its motor symptoms and affects more than 100,000 Canadians. However, PD patients also show cognitive deficits and neuropsychiatric problems that significantly impair their quality of life. The occurrence of dementia in PD is much higher than in the general population. The proposed study will allow the principal investigator, his team and his collaborators to investigate the origins and evolution of the cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Participants with PD with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and participants with and without MCI over the age of 60 years will be assessed during eight study visits over three years. Through brain imaging, clinical testing, as well as genotyping the cognitive patterns in the four different groups will be observed and compared. The results will be used to identify biomarkers that can predict the occurrence of dementia early in the disease. Ultimately, the results of the proposed research will contribute to interventions and treatment strategies tailored to different cognitive profiles in PD before the occurrence of dementia.