Active clinical trials for "Multiple Sclerosis"

Cognitive problems are a primary concern for people with multiple sclerosis. In many cases, people with MS report these issues to be more debilitating than the motor symptoms that are targeted by most treatment strategies. For people with MS, impaired memory and thinking skills can interfere with the ability to function efficiently in multiple professional and personal roles. Finding ways to decrease, slow, or reverse declines in memory and thinking skills is a vitally important research priority. We now know that engaging in intellectually enriching activities helps protect against the negative impact of MS disease-related declines in memory and thinking. Such activities contribute to something called 'cognitive reserve,' which serves as a protection against disease-related declines in memory and thinking. Thus far, no one has created a treatment that aims to provide a concentrated 'dose' of intellectual enrichment to build cognitive reserve. The present intervention aims to do precisely this. Here, we have developed a program of enriching activities that are delivered via a personal iPad. This allows for a 12-week 'treatment' that is entirely home-based, while also providing close personal contact between participants and our study personnel, who will communicate daily via emails. Week by week, participants choose from a menu of intellectually enriching activities such that their treatment is dynamic and customizable to fit their interests. The intervention is designed to be fun, as we hope the activities will be incorporated into people's lives beyond the period of the study itself. Given what we already know about the striking benefits of cognitive reserve to protect against disease-related declines in cognitive functioning, we expect to show that treatment with a daily, intense, intellectually enriching schedule of activities results in improved thinking and memory for people with MS. We will also investigate the positive impact of our treatment on the brains of people with MS through brain scans. We expect to see evidence for a shift toward more efficient processing in the brain, changes that translate to improved memory and thinking skills.

There is growing evidence that exercise-based rehabilitation results in improvements in mobility and participation in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the vast majority of the scientific evidence in support of this view is based on persons with MS who have minimal mobility impairment. This is partially due to the lack of accessible exercise equipment and facilities available to persons with severe mobility limitations. One option available to persons with severe mobility limitations is body weight supported treadmill training. Indeed, this rehabilitation approach has been utilized with some success in various clinical populations, such as stroke and spinal cord injury, and is believed to target neuroplasticity. Specific to persons with MS, body weight supported treadmill training has shown great promise in improving quality of life, symptoms and functional mobility in two small (n=4 and n=6) pilot investigations. However, previous research has been hampered by methodological limitations including small sample size, lack of a control group and limited training sessions. Consequently, no firm conclusion regarding the benefit of body weighted supported treadmill training in persons with MS can be drawn. The proposed project seeks to determine if twenty-weeks of body weight supported treadmill training leads to improvements in physiological function, mobility and quality of life in persons with MS with severe mobility limitations. The outcomes of this project have the potential to lead to new rehabilitation approaches capable of improving function and quality of life in persons with advanced MS.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate patients' views when injecting Avonex intramuscularly.

Cognitive impairment, or problems with thinking and memory, is common in multiple sclerosis (MS) and can occur independently of physical disability. It is the most common reason, along with physical fatigue, for MS patients to stop working. The most frequent complaint is problems with multi-tasking or thinking quickly, which corresponds to impairment in the cognitive domain of processing speed. Currently there is treatment available to prevent relapses and physical disability but there are no medications that have been shown to treat cognitive impairment. Amphetamines have been beneficial for selective attention and processing speed in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and traumatic brain injury. This is study will determine whether Adderall XR improves objective measures of processing speed and attention in MS patients impaired in this cognitive domain, by comparing two doses of Adderall XR (5 and 10mg) to placebo before and after the medication is administered. The results of this study will help provide data to design a larger study to determine if Adderall XR, and potentially other amphetamine drugs, will help treat cognitive impairment in MS patients.

The purpose of this study is to determine if treatment with Mirabegron will improve urinary urgency control beyond that achieved with pelvic floor exercises alone

The purpose of this study is to: (1) test the benefits of the patient-centered collaborative care treatment approach for persons with MS who also have depression and/or pain; and also (2) test whether this approach improves quality of life, patient satisfaction, adherence to other treatments, and quality of care in the MS care system.

Incomplete remission after an optic neuritis attack is not uncommon. Visual reconstitution therapy is a software-based approach that has been shown to substantially improve residual visual field deficits in patients with pre- and postchiasmatic lesions. The primary hypothesis of this randomized, controlled clinical trial is, that visual reconstitution therapy is superior to active comparator treatment in improving the visual field after optic neuritis.

Natalizumab (TYSABRI) is a protein-based drug that is manufactured by Biogen Idec in partnership with Elan Pharmaceuticals. Natalizumab is approved in the US and Europe for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The purpose of this study is to determine whether the amount of natalizumab (TYSABRI) that is present in your blood (plasma) can be reduced or eliminated by separating and removing the plasma and replacing it with other fluids, a process called plasma exchange.

This study is to find out if there is any benefit to adding Simvastatin to Interferon-beta-1a in patients with Multiple Sclerosis.

The primary study objective is to test the superiority of Daclizumab High Yield Process (DAC HYP) compared to interferon β 1a (IFN β-1a) in preventing multiple sclerosis (MS) relapse in participants with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. The secondary study objectives are to test the superiority of DAC HYP compared to IFN β-1a in slowing functional decline and disability progression and maintaining quality of life in this participant population.