Active clinical trials for "Dementia, Vascular"

This study evaluates an educational brochure tailored to caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease dementia, Lewy body disease, frontotemporal dementia, and vascular disease dementia. The goal of the brochure is educating caregivers about the decreased ability to detect emotion and decreased empathy that can be seen in dementia, increasing caregiver competence in providing care, and teaching caregivers ways to manage over time that lessens burden and improves quality of life.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES -Establish a registry for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD) STUDY DESIGN -This is a non-randomized, natural history, observational, registry study. SAMPLE SIZE AND RECRUITMENT - Five hundred subjects will be enrolled at each clinical site (50 NC, 200 with MCI, 50 with AD, 100 with vMCI, and 100 with SIVD) SUMMARY OF KEY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA Newly enrolled subjects will be between 50-80 (inclusive) years of age. 1) Cognitively Normal Subjects 2) MCI subjects 3) AD subjects 4) vMCI or SIVD PROCEDURES Recruited subjects will have clinical/cognitive assessments, biomarker and genetic sample collection, and imaging. Subjects will be followed up for 36 months from the baseline visit. All assessments are to be performed every year from baseline(0, 12, 24, 36 months), except; 1) FDG-PET and amyloid-PET will be performed every two years, i.e., on baseline and at 24 month visit. 2) CSF collection will also be performed on baseline and at 24 months visit. 3) Clinical/cognitive assessment and MRI evaluation will additionally be done at 6 months from baseline to determine short term change. OUTCOME MEASURES Group differences for each clinical, cognitive, biochemical, and imaging measurement. Rate of conversion or change of disease severity will be evaluated among all groups Correlations among biomarkers and biomarker changes

In this study, the investigators will be looking at results of tests of memory and thinking and daily activities in a group of people without known chronic kidney disease (CKD) , and a group of CKD patients, and follow the participants for up to four more years, including after the participants start dialysis or receive a transplant. The investigators are doing this study to compare how often memory loss, confusion and difficulty with daily activities occur in those without and those with CKD. Additionally, the investigators are doing this study to identify risk factors for memory and thinking problems in CKD patients. The information received through the NDI will be utilized to help track our study population and help provide useful information regarding cause of death of those in our study.

The present study aims at combining biochemical methods with various types of imaging techniques to identify the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The main interest is to find markers associated with the very early steps in the pathology of this disease. The investigators shall thus screen for i) molecules in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma specific for AD, and ii) brain imaging markers (e.g. MRI and PET) that correlate to detailed clinical assessments. Biomarkers of interest would then be useful to: Enable accurate detection of the disease early on. Such biomarkers need to specifically reflect the very early pathophysiology of AD and distinguish it from disorders with similar symptomatology, such as other types of dementia and major depression. The sensitivity and specificity of these biomarkers in combination with clinical assessment should be of at least 90%. Enable prediction of the course of events of the disease, such as the disease rate in individual patients. Biomarkers that can predict the pattern of future symptoms will be extremely valuable. Allow monitoring of early effects of new disease-modifying therapies (so-called surrogate biomarkers). Currently clinical therapeutic trials for AD require large patient groups together with long-term treatment. Both size of the groups and treatment time will be reduced with the help of surrogate biomarkers. Study the pathogenesis of the disease. Biomarkers can be used to investigate in detail early alterations in AD patients. For instance, changes in the levels of certain molecules in CSF together with genetic predisposition could then be correlated to clinical signs and changes detectable by brain imaging. This can lead to identification of new therapeutic targets that could easily be monitored in future trials.

This retrospective case control explores the retinal features of dementia associated with neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer's disease. By linking a pseudonymised dataset of three-dimensional retinal scans, called optical coherence tomography, with nationally held data on dementia, corresponding characteristics will be evaluated through descriptive statistics and machine learning techniques.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) are the most common forms of dementia. Yet, the cause of these diseases is still unknown. A potentially important initiating factor is a disrupted blood-brain barrier. This can initiate cerebral microangiopathy, which has frequently been associated with VaD. Nevertheless, also in most AD patients a substantial increase of vascular damage has been observed. The present study investigates the correlation between blood-brain-barrier breakdown and cognitive decline in AD and VaD. An innovative dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI scan that has recently been developed and tested at our institute, will be used to measure blood-brain barrier permeability. Objective: We will investigate the relationship between this permeability measure and (i) cognitive performance and (ii) the status of MRI visible cerebrovascular pathology (i.e. white matter hyperintensities, lacunar infarctions, microbleeds) in the most common forms of dementia.

The HKU Neurocognitive Disorder (NCD) Cohort is a hospital-based, prospective, observational study of older HK Chinese adults with cognitive impairment, with a special focus on studying patients with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment.

The white matter change of the Alzheimer's disease could be studied by diffusion tensor image and MR spectroscopy to see the microstructral and biochemical change.