Active clinical trials for "Bipolar Disorder"

This trial attempts to evaluate the treatment efficacy of magnetic seizure therapy (MST) and its safety for bipolar mania. Half of the participants will receive MST, while the other half will receive electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

The investigators propose to enhance the scalability of family-focused therapy (FFT), a 12-session evidence-based therapy for youth at high risk for mood disorders, through augmentation with a novel mobile phone application called MyCoachConnect (MCC). In adolescents with mood instability who have a parent with bipolar or major depressive disorder, clinicians in community clinics will conduct FFT sessions (consisting of psychoeducation and family skills training) supplemented by weekly MCC "real time" assessments of moods and family relationships; based on results of these assessments and the family's progress in treatment, clinicians will then push personalized informational and coaching alerts regarding the practice of communication and problem-solving skills. The investigators hypothesize that the augmented version of FFT (FFT-MCC) will be more effective than FFT without coaching/informational alerts in altering treatment targets and in stabilizing youths' mood symptoms and quality of life.

Approximately 4.1% of the adult US population meets the criteria for SMI, a mental disorder associated with significant functional impairment. Even when effective, pharmacologic and psychological treatments often leave individuals with SMI with residual symptoms, impairment, and at risk for re-hospitalization and suicide. The month following hospitalization is a particularly risky time; thus, augmentation treatments that can speed up improvement during brief hospital stays, as well as provide a bridge to outpatient care are urgently needed. Thus, the investigators propose to develop an augmentation to psychiatric hospital care (called "I-Change") that can be continued at home following discharge. I-Change targets interpretation bias, the tendency to resolve ambiguous situations negatively. Interpretation bias is a well-established cognitive vulnerability for psychopathology and is associated with poor emotion regulation, rumination, symptom severity, and suicidal ideation. For example, in a psychiatric hospital sample, interpretation bias upon admission accounted for 28% of the variance in treatment response, and predicted suicidal ideation at discharge, controlling for ideation at admission. Although some existing treatments target this mechanism, most notably Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), they require individuals to be able to recognize their automatic interpretations and use complex techniques to reappraise them. Individuals with SMI who are experiencing symptoms acute enough to require hospitalization are often treatment refractory and may experience particular difficulty applying these techniques. It is therefore critical to more efficiently and effectively engage this target. Over the past 14 years, the Principal Investigator has developed and validated a training task that utilizes repetition and feedback to reinforce a healthier interpretive style. The computer-delivered version of the task was acceptable to an SMI population and led to better treatment response than a placebo task in patients who exhibited interpretation bias at baseline. The investigators seek to develop this task into a personalized smart-phone delivered intervention. The investigators will harness smart-phone technology to enhance skill acquisition and generalization by improving user engagement and prompting participants to complete a session at set times to ensure adequate dosage and spacing of sessions. The investigators will conduct an open trial (n = 16) and a randomized controlled trial (n = 64) to confirm target engagement (improvement in interpretation bias), evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of delivering I-Change during and following discharge from a partial hospital, and examine clinical outcomes (global improvement, functioning) related to changes in interpretation. I-Change is expected to shift interpretation bias, be acceptable to patients with SMI, and lead to greater global improvement compared to a Symptom Tracking control. Results will support a fully-powered effectiveness trial.

A randomized single-blinded prospective study to evaluate the efficacy of an individualized supervised 8-week exercise program in subjects with moderate to severe depressive episodes compared to treatment-as-usual

Bipolar disorder patients frequently presents recurring episodes and often experience subsyndromal symptoms, cognitive impairment and difficulties in the functioning with a low quality of life, relapses of disease and recurring hospitalization. Early diagnosis and appropriate intervention may play a role in preventing the neuroprogressive course of bipolar illness. The new technologies represent an opportunity to develop psychological standardized treatments using internet devices that minimizing the limitations of face to face treatments because of its accessibility that allow adjusting to the availability of each user. However, although exist many online psychological programs through web and mobile devices for bipolar disorder, there is not evidence about their efficacy and effectiveness due to the variability in measures and methodology used.

This study aims to investigate the effects of the Switch intervention on motivation and associated processes and explore the dynamics between the processes. A single case approach is followed, with a pre-post and follow-up assessment design, and continuous ambulatory assessments (experience sampling method (ESM) and step count).

In bipolar disorder, treatment noncompliance is associated with high rates of recurrence and hospitalization. Furthermore, it is reported that that treatment noncompliance disturbs the social functioning of patients and reduces the quality of life. Improvement of the quality of life, social functioning and treatment compliance is as important as the long-term treatment of symptoms.This study aimed to determine the effect of treatment compliance training given to patients with bipolar disorder on treatment compliance, social functioning, and quality of life.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a serious mental disorder characterized by episodes of mania/hypomania and/or depression. Compared to the general population, these individuals present functional impairment, and life interference subclinical symptoms even between mood episodes, and higher mood instability and suicide rates with a lower quality of life. Given the chronic and phasic course of this disorder, patients are great consumers of health services and in Portugal there is no specialised psychotherapeutic approach to Bipolar Disorder, having pharmacological treatment alone as the main therapeutic response, and a considerable number of patients are not fully stabilized with drug treatments, experiencing residual symptoms. Although studies suggest that certain psychological therapies can be helpful for people experiencing full mood disorder episodes, or to reduce risk of future episodes, there are no gold standard and evidence-based psychological therapies for BD, and recent systematic reviews on psychosocial interventions for BD identify Dialectical-Behavior Therapy (DBT) as promising. Our research is sustained in a recovery based perspective, which means we intend to develop a sense of hope, understanding, empowerment and work towards a meaningful and satisfying life, focusing on less clinical outcomes. Recovery is a concept that looks beyond the traditional clinical definitions which focus on reduced symptomatology, hospitalisation and medication compliance, and focuses on having a better sense of living even though you might have some clinical symptomatology. DBT was developed as an approach for highly emotionally and behaviourally dysregulated people, and it has been referred as promising in BD patients. DBT aims to give individuals who experience quick and intense shifts in mood, skills to manage and regulate their emotions. People with Bipolar Disorder can benefit from skills to regulate their emotions and interpersonal efficacy, which is frequently affected by mood changes, and therefore have a life worth living, feeling skillful and empowered to deal with challenges. Our study aimed to develop a 12 session DBT-skills group adapting the sessions and skills to be used with this client group (Bi-REAL - Respond Effectively and Live mindfully). This study aims to test acceptability, feasibility and efficacy of this 12 session DBT skills pilot randomized group intervention for patients with Bipolar Disorders.

The visual system has increasingly been recognized as an important site of injury in patients with schizophrenia and other psychoses. Visual system alterations manifest as visual perceptual aberrations, deficits in visual processing, and visual hallucinations. These visual symptoms are associated with worse symptoms, poorer outcome and resistance to treatment. A recent study using brain lesion mapping of visual hallucinations and identified a causal location in the part of the brain that processes visual information (visual cortex). The association between visual cortex activation and visual hallucinations suggests that this region could be targeted using noninvasive brain stimulation. Two case studies have found that brain stimulation to the visual cortex improved visual hallucinations in treatment resistant patients with psychosis. While promising it is unclear whether these symptom reductions resulted from activity changes in the visual cortex or not. Here we aim to answer the question whether noninvasive brain stimulation when optimally targeted to the visual cortex can improve brain activity, visual processing and visual hallucinations. The knowledge gained from this study will contribute to the field of vision by providing a marker for clinical response and by personalizing treatment for patients with psychosis suffering from visual symptoms. This grant will allow us to set the foundation for a larger more targeted study utilizing noninvasive brain stimulation to improve visual symptoms in patients with psychosis.

This study is a 6-week micro-randomized trial investigating the feasibility of a mobile health platform. Its long-term objective is to develop a mobile health platform for the translation of a psychosocial intervention for bipolar disorder (BP) into an effective and evidence-based adaptive intervention. In this aim of the study, investigators will evaluate how individuals with BP respond to a microintervention based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) that is delivered with a mobile app.