Active clinical trials for "Brain Injuries"

The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of adding lithium carbonate (lithium) to treatment for combat-related post traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. The goal of this study is to establish that lithium is a practical and tolerable treatment option for veterans with combat posttraumatic stress disorder.

The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of successfully delivering moderate intensity aerobic exercise training to depressed traumatic brain injury subjects between one and three years after injury.

The purpose of this research study is to develop a method to improve thinking difficulties in individuals who have experienced a traumatic brain injury and report experiencing difficulties in attention and concentration. This study aims to understand how cognitive rehabilitation of attention difficulties affects brain activity.

The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of combining PoNS therapy with standard vestibular and balance therapy with the proposed double-blind design; evaluate preliminary indications of efficacy. This study is also evaluating recruitment rate, completion rate, device usability, and outcome measures feasibility. Goal for recruitment: 100% of 30 subjects meeting all inclusion criteria can be recruited over the 36 week pilot recruitment phase. Completion and compliance: 90% of subjects will complete the study, 90% of sessions within each subject will be completed, and for completing subjects, 100% of measures will be completed. Useability: all therapists and subjects must rate useability as good or better. Success of blind: subject accuracy at guessing group membership must be at or near 50%.

The study will explore the neurocognitive effect of four weeks of treatment with amantadine versus placebo in patients with traumatic brain injury using the Interval Bisection Timing Task. Approximately 16 individuals with traumatic brain injury are expected to participate in this study. Subject participation is expected to last up to 8 weeks with 16 study visits.

This randomized trial will compare the clinical efficacy of adding oral magnesium oxide to acetaminophen and ondansetron in the treatment of adolescents presenting within 48 hours of a mild traumatic brain injury using the Post-Concussion Symptom Severity Score Index.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability in young people. It has been called the "signature wound" of the Iraq war because of its frequency among troops. TBI is associated with many chronic disabilities. Physical alterations include reduced exercise tolerance and profound muscle weakness, whereas psychological alterations include diminished sense of well-being, depression, fatigue and anxiety. Muscle and brain tissues rely upon circulating blood amino acids as precursors for metabolic functions. The investigators have shown that even one year after injury, plasma valine, an essential amino acid (EAA), was markedly reduced in patients with TBI compared to healthy controls. The investigators speculate that low plasma valine concentration contributes to chronic fatigue after TBI, since valine and tryptophan compete for the same transporter into the brain, and a low plasma valine concentration will allow more tryptophan to be transported. As a consequence, increased brain tryptophan will increase serotonin production, which may significantly contribute to the development of fatigue. Thus, the investigators will test if restoring valine concentration in persons with TBI may reduce fatigue perception and improve physical and neuropsychological function. Further, the investigators have previously shown that EAA intake has an anabolic effect in healthy young and elderly individuals. However, no data are currently available in persons recovering from TBI. Thus,the investigators will also test if EAA and/or valine can improve muscle mass in patients with TBI.

Increase in intracranial pressure (ICP) could be associated with increase in positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) level. Data are however disparate and interactions between ventilation with high PEEP and intracranial circulation are still debated. Individual patient's chest wall elastance could have a key role in determining the effects of PEEP on ICP, since it dictates which proportion of the applied PEEP is transmitted to the pleural space, thus increasing central venous pressure (CVP) and reducing cerebral venous return. Measurement of esophageal pressure with a dedicated probe allows partitioning of respiratory system elastance into its lung and chest wall components, thus permitting to study this phenomenon. Multimodal intracranial monitoring permits to study the effects of PEEP on more advanced brain-specific indices such as brain tissue oxygen (PtiO2), cerebral microdialysis data, transcranial doppler ultrasound-derived flow measurements and automated pupillometry, besides ICP. This study aims to test the association between the ratio of chest wall to respiratory system elastance and PEEP-induced variations in ICP and brain-specific multimodal monitoring indices. This study will evaluate the relative role of other selected measures of respiratory mechanics, hemodynamic variables and intracranial compliance, in order to establish the role of individual respiratory mechanics in the interplay of physiological factors affecting the effects of positive pressure ventilation on the brain. Patients will undergo two periods of ventilation at two different levels of PEEP (5 and 15 cmH2O) in a randomized cross-over order. At the end of each period, cardiorespiratory clinical data, ICP and other advanced multimodal neuromonitoring data (brain tissue oxygen tension, cerebral microdyalisis analytes, transcranial doppler ultrasound and automated infrared pupillometry data) will be collected. Systematic respiratory mechanics assessment (including calculation of chest wall and lung elastances and estimation of the amount of recruitment versus overdistension due to PEEP by means of a single-breath derecruitment trial), echocardiography and arterial blood gas analysis will be performed.

The aim of this study is to assess the safety and feasibility of dexmedetomidine as an adjunct to conventional sedative therapy compared to conventional sedative therapy alone in patients with severe traumatic brain injury.

Investigators conduced in the Neurological Rehabilitation Unit of the IRCCS "S.Maria Nascente - Fondazione Don Gnocchi", (Milan) a retrospective study on 19 patients hospitalized between September 2018 and February 2021, with the aim of comparing the efficacy of the two devices, MetaNeb® and Intrapulmonary Percussion Ventilation (IPV®). The efficacy was evaluated considering the change of various measures after two weeks of treatment. The main outcome considered is the atelectasis score, assigned by two radiologists who blindly and retrospectively evaluated it on high-resolution computed tomography (HRTC) images