Active clinical trials for "Dementia"

Brain 18F-FDG PET (positron emission tomography) is recognised as having a good negative predictive value in the search for a neurodegenerative origin of cognitive disorders. Indeed, a ratio of 0.1 on the occurrence of worsening cognitive disorders has been reported in case of normal brain FDG PET. However, the risk of developing objective cognitive disorders in patients with no cognitive complaints is estimated at 8% per year and the risk of developing dementia in patients with mild cognitive disorders at 22% per year. Cerebral 18F-FDG PET is a prognostic factor for the occurrence of unusual clinical manifestations (MCI) or the conversion of MCI to Alzheimer's disease, but we do not really know the impact on the longer term occurrence of cognitive impairment in patients with normal cerebral 18F-FDG PET. Only a longitudinal study will allow us to really know the true negative predictive value of a normal 18F-FDG PET scan and the factors associated with a risk of dementia in these subjects. This will allow us to better understand the prognostic impact of a normal brain 18F-FDG PET scan and to identify a sub-population that remains at risk, including in the case of normal brain 18F-FDG PET.

Prior studies have shown that programs that focus on promoting brain health and managing lifestyle risks (such as poor diet, obesity, physical inactivity, sleep issues, loneliness) may help in preventing or lowering the risk of dementia. To address this, investigators have developed the CAN-THUMBS UP program to conduct studies that target lifestyle risk and focus on dementia prevention. An online Brain Health Support Program (BHSP) has been developed. The BHSP is an educational program designed to teach about dementia. Before the full BHSP is offered to a large group, we are conducting an initial pilot study to help assess the usability of the program.

Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (INPH) is a treatable disease of the elderly, typically causing gait impariment, dementia and urinary incontinence. The objective of this study is to make an epidemiological survey of INPH in Umeå, Sweden. Subjects with self-perceived gait impairments will be identified through a questionnaire. They will go through clinical examinations and have an MRI of the brain. A control population will also be investigated to enable comparisons between the populations. The main hypothesis is that the prevalence of INPH in the population is higher than what is previoulsy known.

The purpose of this research is to better understand how dementia affects activity in different parts of the brain.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) predisposes individuals to neurodegeneration and dementia, including Alzheimer's Disease (AD); yet the link between metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders remains unknown. Here, the investigators will study a well-defined human population with increased prevalence and early onset of both T2D and AD, individuals of Mexican descent living in South Texas. The study will begin to explore the possibility that disruption of the structure of the bacterial community residing in the gut in type 2 diabetic individuals of Mexican descent living in South Texas is directly related to the increased prevalence of early onset AD in this population. In this study, the investigators will perform gene sequencing on DNA isolated from fecal samples to identify and compare the populations of bacteria living in individuals with T2D versus non-diabetic controls. The investigators will analyze the findings to determine if the community structure of the gut microbiome of individuals of Mexican descent with T2D is significantly altered compared to that of non-diabetics within the same population. The investigators' findings could lead to the identification of early indicators of dementia onset as well as novel therapies for treating metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases.

The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the feasibility of eliciting continuous narrative speech in different neurodegenerative and psychiatric indications, using remote, self-administered speech tasks, as measured by the average length of speech elicitation for each speech task during the first week of self-assessment. Secondary objectives include (1) evaluating the reliability of speech tasks in the remote self-administered setting, as measured by the intra- and inter-subject variance; (2) accessing the adherence of speech tasks in this setting, as measured by the subject average fraction of days during the first week, where at least one task response is submitted; (3) evaluating the feasibility of using speech tasks in the setting of a telemedicine videoconference, as measured by the average length of speech elicited in each group; (4) evaluate whether a set of acoustic and linguistic patterns can detect each indication, compare to either a control group or all other indications, as measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity and Cohen's kappa of the relevant binary classifier; (5) evaluating how the performance of such algorithms can be impacted by speaker and environment covariates, as measured by the Kendall rank correlation coefficient of the AUC of each classifier and each of age group, gender and speech-to-reverberation modulation energy ratio.

The objective of this study is to develop and validate a clinical prediction tool to estimate 1-year mortality among hospitalized patients with dementia.

Behavioural disorders are very common right from the initial stage of dementia and contribute to loss of autonomy. Behavioural dysexecutive disorders have a particular status due to their prevalence and their diagnostic importance, as they often constitute the initial symptoms of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Semantic Dementia (SD) and Huntington's disease (HD) and they are classically more frequent in vascular dementia (VaD) than in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The presence of these disorders at the stage of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) has only been partially evaluated and would increase the risk of progression to dementia. These classical data are based on non-standardized assessments and non-validated diagnostic criteria. The Groupe de Reflexion pour l'Evaluation des Fonctions EXécutives (GREFEX) has developed a standardized assessment tool for behavioural dysexecutive disorders, the Behavioural Dysexecutive Syndrome Inventory (BDSI) and has validated diagnostic criteria for this syndrome.

The objective of this study is to determine whether horticultural therapy would improve the psychological well-being older adults who are at risk of memory (cognitive) decline. 100 elderly subjects who are at risk of cognitive decline will be randomized into the active horticultural therapy or to the waitlist control group. Sessions will be conducted weekly for 9 months, and participants will be assessed at 3 time-points: at the start of the study, at 3 months and at 9 months. It is hypothesized that participants who undergo horticultural therapy will perform better on neuropsychological tests when compared to control, and that they will have improved psychological well-being and functional outcomes.

To investigate the prospective association between a vegetarian diet and chronic degenerative diseases in two cohorts of Taiwanese Buddhists