Active clinical trials for "Delusions"

Psychological studies have shown that individuals tend to attribute causes of positive and negative events differently. Specifically, individuals hold an internalising or externalising bias of attribution which, in the case of particular patient groups, was found to polarize to the extreme. Such extreme attributional styles have found to have a direct impact on emotions, leading to a waning course of psychiatric disorders. This project aims to further examine the theoretical links between attributions and emotions using a transdiagnostic approach, and the effect of a 4-session process-based intervention on attributional biases.

Symptoms of schizophrenia have historically been treatment resistant despite advances in psychopharmacology. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been shown through some preliminary research to be effective with psychotic symptoms (Bach & Hayes, 2002). ACT is considered part of the "third wave of CBT" along with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993) and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2001). The target of change in ACT is acceptance of symptoms as experiences that a person can have without experiencing distress, and while living a life in accordance with one's values. The current study assessed the effectiveness of ACT (8 sessions) for delusions. Participants received treatment as usual throughout the study. The intervention followed the protocol of ACT described in Hayes, Strosahl and Wilson (1999) in which treatment will consist of building acceptance, willingness, and commitment to change, clarifying values, defusion of thoughts and feelings, as well as defusion of self. These therapeutic aims attempted to be achieved by the practice of various exercises in and out of session as well as the discussion of various metaphors within session. It was hypothesized that participants will exhibit decreased distress due to delusions, decreased delusional conviction and a reduction of overall anxiety levels from participants' baselines.

The aim of the present single-centered pre-post study is to assess the feasibility and to investigate the putative efficacy of an emotion-oriented group intervention for patients with psychosis. Patients with early psychosis in an inpatient unit receive a manualized group intervention focussing on emotional stability and emotion regulation (8 weekly sessions). Assessment will be performed at pre-therapy, post-therapy (after eight sessions and four weeks) and after a follow-up period of 12 weeks (8 weeks post therapy) and includes personal therapy goals and their realization, psychopathology, social functioning and emotion regulation skills as a putative mediator of change.

This study is a placebo-controlled 12 week trial of DCS augmentation of once-weekly CBT sessions in 60 schizophrenia subjects with antipsychotic-resistant delusions. In addition to testing efficacy, this trial will characterize DCS effects in terms of time course and persistence of response and will examine DCS effects on memory consolidation and cognitive flexibility as possible mediators of DCS enhancement of CBT for delusions.

This study will assess the effectiveness of an experimental treatment intervention for adolescents and adults who have experienced their first episode of psychosis during the past two years. The DUP sub-study will collect pathways to care information that will be used to inform the development and pilot testing of strategies that aim to reduce DUP among individuals experiencing a first episode of psychosis.

Since side effects of antipsychotics, dopamine D2 receptor blockers, frequently occur in older patients with schizophrenia and the risk is dose dependent, clinical guidelines universally advocate the use of lower doses. However, there is no report to test this dosing guideline with measurements of D2 receptor blockade caused by antipsychotics. In this study, dopamine D2 receptor occupancy will be measured, using Positron Emission Tomography (PET), in 40 patients aged 50 and older with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders before and after a gradual 40 % dose reduction of antipsychotics that was safely achieved in the past study while setting a target dose still above the lower limit of the dose range recommended in clinical guidelines for older patients. Our goal is to relate changes in clinical outcome, including subjective and objective clinical ratings, to dopamine D2 receptor occupancy, and compare these results with the data for younger patients in the literature.

Over a period of 4 weeks, metacognitive training for schizophrenia patients (MCT), delivered both in a group and individually, is compared to cognitive remediation (CogPack training). Blind to treatment assignment, both groups are assessed before intervention and four weeks later with the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS), the Psychosis Rating Scales (PSYRATS) and cognitive tests. Delusion severity serves as the primary endpoint. It is assumed that MCT will improve delusion severity to a greater extent than CR in the course of 4 weeks taking medication into account.

Parkinson's disease psychosis encompasses a range of symptoms, including minor phenomena, frank hallucinations, and delusions. Minor phenomena include passage hallucinations (fleeting sense of a person, animal or object passing in the periphery), presence hallucinations (feeling of nearby presence), and illusions (misrepresentation of external stimuli). Some forms of PD psychosis may be progressive. The primary objective of this study is to: 1) To determine the cumulative probability of developing hallucinations or delusions over time in individuals with PD minor phenomena followed for 36 months.

The proposed study aims to use a form of neuromodulation, known as transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), to improve the effectiveness of the metacognitive training (MCT) program for treatment of delusions in schizophrenia. tACS is a non-invasive brain stimulation method utilizing weak electrical currents applied to the head to influence neural firing (Antal & Paulus, 2013). Brain regions implicated in delusional thinking will be targeted in the hopes of promoting thinking patterns that will allow participants to question delusional beliefs, reducing the severity of delusions and increasing the positive effects of MCT (Whitman et al., in press; Whitman, Minz & Woodward, 2013). Electroencephalogram (EEG) and behavioural assessments will be used to measure treatment effects. However, before tACS will be administered to individuals experiencing delusions associated with schizophrenia we will conduct various control-phase (pilot) studies to gain a better understanding on how tACS temporarily alters performance on cognitive processes by biasing dominant patterns of oscillations. The objective of the pilot studies is to establish the effectiveness of the EGI GTEN system in modulating brain oscillations in the cortex of healthy participants by means of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). In this control/pilot phase of our study, we aim to establish that we can induce changes in the power of a specific frequency band in targeted cortical regions with neuromodulation using the GTEN system, and we will assess whether doing so temporarily alters performance on simple cognitive and perceptual processes in healthy controls. This will be the first step towards translating our stimulation protocol to the patient population for our primary study of interest (tACS as an adjunct to metacognitive training for delusions in psychosis).

Schizophrenia causes hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking, resulting in decreased functioning and lifelong therapy.Delusion believability is the degree of belief in the truth of one's subjective experiences as representations of reality. It was unpleasant, typically accompanied by a suspicious, strange tension. Delusional belief is seen as a means of resolving tension and conflict in cognition and experience. Previous studies have shown that cognitive defusion strategies help people become more aware of their surroundings, accept their thoughts and feelings, and become more psychologically adjustable. defusion is crucial in reducing medication-resistant psychotic symptoms such delusions in schizophrenia patients. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of cognitive defusion techniques on psychological flexibility, mindful awareness, cognitive fusion, and believability of delusions among clients with schizophrenia. Research Hypothesizes Clients who participated in cognitive defusion techniques had more psychological flexibility and mindful awareness than the control group. Clients who participated in cognitive defusion techniques had less cognitive fusion and delusional believability than the control group.