Active clinical trials for "Brain Injuries"

Years after a suffering a brain injury, individuals remain in a physically and cognitively impaired state. The investigators believe that the concentrations of amino acids in the blood are chronically altered and yield negative effects on the individuals health. Preliminary data has shown significantly lower concentrations of amino acids in serum samples from the TBI population, these diminished levels of amino acids may be due to changes in the microbiome. Understanding these changes will help guide rehabilitative services for this population. Individuals with a chronic brain injury will donate samples of blood, oral tissue, and fecal matter to be compared to that of non-injured individuals. Genetic information from the hosts will be striped and discarded; participant's genetic information will not be retained. To better understand changes in the microbiome, any history of antibiotics and probiotics will be assessed.

The purpose of this study is to use an investigational assay to assess levels of putative biomarkers of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a general population. The data will be used in a correlative analysis with data collected under a separate study of severe TBI.

Adult patients, age ≥ 18 years, with clinically diagnosed mild, moderate or severe brain trauma will be asked to participate in the study. This prospective database will consist of 400 subjects with TBI, 200 from both TUCH and Cambridge Addenbrooke's Hospital. In addition, 100 controls will be recruited, with 50 from both centres.This study is a prospective clinical observational study with detailed data collecting. All patients will be treated according to the accepted, standardized, existing guidelines that are based on national and international recommendations. New treatment interventions will NOT be evaluated during the data acquisition for this study.

Those with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at increased risk for suicidal behavior, and suicidality is associated with executive dysfunction. In the aim of highlighting an important risk factor, this study will assess decision making in the context of an interaction between suicide and TBI. Findings will also allow for exploratory analyses aimed at identifying associations between performance on measures of executive functioning and psychological distress. The long-term objective of this study is to increase understanding regarding executive dysfunction, as a multidimensional construct, with the ultimate goal of conceptualizing assessment tools and interventions aimed at decreasing suicidality in the at-risk population of veterans with a history of TBI.

This project will describe and evaluate the impact of a unique partnership model designed to coordinate transfer of care by formally linking pediatric and adult heath care services. The experiences of young people receiving this model of care will be compared and contrasted against the experiences of young people receiving the current standard of care. Young people with a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy (CP), Acquired Brain Injury in childhood (ABIc), and Spina Bifida (SB) will be followed during the transition period. Preparation for transition, health care, and transfer of care service delivery will be detailed in a process evaluation. An outcome evaluation will measure the ability of the two models of service to enable youth to maintain continuity within the health care system after transitioning from pediatric to adult care. Secondary outcomes, including how health, well-being, social participation, transition readiness, and health care utilization are affected will also be explored.

Each year in the United States alone, 300,000 persons are hospitalized for traumatic brain injury, with approximately one quarter dying. Despite advances in aggressive neurosurgical interventions, intensive care monitoring and overall supportive management, many of those who do "survive" do not fully recover and are left with a varying degree of permanent disability. It is therefore imperative that new methods of early interventions be explored. One possible road to effective therapy is to examine the timing of secondary injury via a biological marker, to help guide the timing of treatment directed specifically at early oxidant injury. A more thorough understanding of how quickly oxidant injury occurs will allow us to direct appropriate therapies targeted directly at oxidant injury within what is currently thought to be a very narrow window of opportunity for intervention, possibly peaking within the first two hours after the initial injury. Potential participants include patients between the ages of 18 and 50 years who are admitted to Parkland Memorial Hospital with a diagnosis of severe traumatic brain injury. Blood, urine, and CSF (if patient requires a clinically indicated ventriculostomy) will be collected over the first 5 days post-injury. Clinically-relevant patient progress, clinically required interventions, neuro-imaging results, and demographics will be tracked while the patient is hospitalized, with final neurological outcome measured at 3 months.

Prospective memory (PM) is memory to complete future tasks, such as recalling to give a note to someone when you next see them, pick up milk on the way home, or remembering to keep an appointment. This study will evaluate PM in children with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The Vietnam Head Injury Study (VHIS)-Phase III is a prospective, long-term follow-up study of head-injured Vietnam veterans. The purpose of this research study is to determine the long-term consequences, if any, of head injury.

The subjective feeling of being periodically fatigued, tired, even exhausted is common in the general population, as well as in a large number of medical conditions, including neurological illness, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), multiple sclerosis (MS), and poliomyelitis. Fatigue typically results in compensatory behaviors such as spending extended time in bed, daytime napping, and restricted participation in activities of daily living, which in turn can have a profound negative impact on mental and physical health. Although fatigue is common and debilitating, there is a scarcity of knowledge concerning underlying biological, psychological and psychosocial mechanisms in the development and maintenance of persisting fatigue. There is also a general lack of theoretical accounts of potentially shared and etiology-specific mechanisms across conditions. The existence of clinical subgroups and diverse clinical trajectories is not well documented, resulting in a lack of evidence-based treatment opportunities. Diagnosis and management of fatigue is further challenged by difficulties in conceptualizing and defining the phenomenon itself, since fatigue is subjectively experienced and multifaceted. Thus, as fatigue often poses a chronic problem, health professionals in community based rehabilitation settings are faced with helping patients cope with this symptom without a clear understanding of causes or treatment options. The current project aims to map the occurrence of fatigue following moderate to severe TBI and achieve a better theoretical and clinical understanding of the mechanisms which may cause, exacerbate or protect against persisting fatigue following TBI. The study approach acknowledges that fatigue after neurological illness is the result of complex interplays between general individual predispositions and etiology-specific factors. A better understanding of these mechanisms is a prerequisite for personalized treatment and development of empirically based randomized controlled intervention studies. This approach has relevance to other clinical conditions as well. The long-term aim is to ensure accurate diagnosis, improve treatment and rehabilitation, and to contribute to knowledge based clinical decision-making both within specialized and community based rehabilitation settings.

The Bridging Recovery Allies in Virtual Environments (BRAVE) study aims to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of implementing a virtual environment (VE) social support group for social communication training among adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI).