Active clinical trials for "Brain Injuries, Traumatic"

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability around the world. The social and economic burden of TBI is tremendous and the cost of TBI is estimated at $1 billion per year in Canada- $650 million in care and $580 million in lost productivity. Novel interventions aimed at TBI-linked molecular targets have been successful in limiting injury and improving neurologic recovery in animal models, thus providing compelling evidence that effective intervention is possible after injury. This study proposes to investigate traumatic microvascular injury (TMI) and specifically blood-brain barrier dysfunction (BBBD) as a candidate biomarker and therapeutic target in TBI.

The purpose of this single center, longitudinal, pilot study is to provide evidence for the use of an eye tracking system as an objective tool to identify mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) related oculomotor dysfunction (OMD) and predict the effectiveness of neurovision rehabilitation (NVR) of OMD. Eye tracking visual stimulus measurements will be compared to objective developmental optometrist (OD) diagnosis and assessments. It will be determined whether an eye tracking system can predict the presence or absence of mTBI related OMD and whether mTBI patients who have OMD based on the eye tracking system will respond positively to NVR.

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.

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).

The objective of this study is to further evaluate eye movements as an aid in the diagnosis of concussion / mTBI and the utility of eye movement assessment in the monitoring of symptoms over time after an initial diagnosis of concussion.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death, disability and cognitive impairment in young people worldwide. The majority of the traumatic deaths in developed countries results directly from lesions in the central nervous system. Furthermore, due to the persistence of disabling effects of TBI for many years, personal and public costs of supporting survivors have to be taken in consideration. Many patients rescued by ICU treatment may have been severely disabled or vegetative because of trauma. These data suggest that, despite improvement in medical and surgical treatments, other factors related to trauma itself and to patient's condition could have an impact on the final outcome. Aim of the TBI-PRO project is to collect high quality clinical and epidemiological data and to describe the outcome of moderate-to-severe TBI in a local contest (Bergamo area, Italy).