Active clinical trials for "Parkinson Disease"

Parkinson's disease involves many motor difficulties as well as non-motor ones. Recent research has strongly suggested that exercise is very important for Parkinson's disease. We are interested especially in dance as a form of exercise, because it combines physical movements with balance tasks, social engagement, and mental stimulation. Therefore, we think dance classes may be a very beneficial exercise for Parkinson's disease; the purpose of this study is to see if Argentinean Tango classes might improve motor and non-motor manifestations of Parkinson's disease.

This is a phase I study to assess the tolerability and safety of 4 injections of two different doses of AFFITOPE® PD01A formulated with an adjuvant to patients with early Parkinson's disease in male and female patients aged 45 to 65 years (or age between 40 and 45 years if there is no evidence for genetic forms of the disease and the diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease was confirmed, after approval by Sponsor). One study site in Vienna (Austria) will be involved. Each patient's participation will last 1 year. In addition, up to 8 patients will be offered participation within an untreated control group.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) activity of BIA 9-1067 in healthy male subjects after single oral ascending doses.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease affecting movement. Although drug treatments for PD are available they only treat the symptoms of the disease, fail to halt neuronal loss, and are associated with long term side effects and loss of efficacy. There is a chronic need to develop neuroprotective therapies. Increased iron and oxidative stress have been heavily implicated in the neurodegenerative process in PD, hence removal of excess iron by iron chelation represents a potential drug target. Iron chelators are extensively utilised to treat peripheral iron overload disorders (e.g. thalassaemia) and recently the investigators have demonstrated iron chelators such as Deferiprone can enter the brain removing excess iron and are neuroprotective in PD animal models. Although good tolerability and efficacy to remove brain iron has also been shown in a pilot study with the iron chelators Deferiprone in young patients with Friedreich Ataxia, where iron accumulates in the dentate nucleus, no studies have been conducted in aged individuals affected by PD. Hence the aims of this study are 1) to assess whether Deferiprone is well tolerated in PD patients, 2) whether Deferiprone can remove the excess iron levels found in the brain area affected by PD, the substantia nigra, as assessed by Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 3) whether Deferiprone has any direct effect on the clinical symptoms of PD. Three groups of 12 (total 36) early stage drug free PD patients will be treated with 20 or 30mg/kg/d Deferiprone or Placebo for 6 months. Over the 6 months patients will receive serial MRI scans, neurological examinations not only to assess PD symptoms but also psychological state, plus blood test to monitor for potential side effects. Positive results from this pilot will help support larger clinical trials to evaluate whether Deferiprone can slow down/halt PD.

The purpose of this study is to learn more about the effects of exercise on patients who have been recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD). The investigators are going to test two levels of exercise (moderate to vigorous) against no exercise. The investigators think that exercise may reduce the symptoms the of PD, and the investigators hope to learn what level of exercise will offer the most benefit.

The purpose of the study is to compare vascular and functional neurological changes of acupuncture in patients with Parkinson's Disease and Sleep Disorders. In the randomized controlled clinical trial study, patients meeting the criteria for inclusion will be randomly enrolled and divided into two groups in a 1:1 ratio: the acupuncture group and the sham acupuncture group. The intervention is going to be executed using the acupoints GV14（Dazhui）and GB20 (Fengchi).The acupuncture needles will be inserted to a depth of 0.8 to 1 cm using GV14（Dazhui）and GB20 (Fengchi) in the acupuncture group. The sham acupuncture group's needles will be inserted to a depth of 0.1 to 0.2 cm with nonacupuncture points located 0.5 cm in lateral to the real acupoint or to the right for midline points.During the study, researchers will observe changes in cerebral blood vessels and neuroimaging before and after acupuncture in the two groups. Using multimodal fusion advanced vascular-neuronal imaging techniques could evaluate the effect of acupuncture on brain blood vessels and function in patients with Parkinson's disease and Sleep Disorders and provide an objective neuroimaging basis for assessing the effectiveness of acupuncture.

The objective of this study is to understand the bioenergetic impairments that underlie Parkinson's disease (PD) and evaluating treatments that may improve abnormal mitochondrial function that is present in PD. The hypothesis is that repeated oral dosing of UDCA will result in increased brain ATP levels in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). The specific aims are 1.) to measure plasma UDCA levels in individuals with PD at baseline and after four weeks of repeated high doses of oral UDCA (50mg/kg/day) and 2.) to measure cortical bioenergetic profile and ATPase activity (as ascertained through MRS) in those with PD at baseline and at four weeks after repeated high doses of oral UDCA (50mg/kg/day) simultaneously. Secondary aims are to characterize oral UDCA pharmacokinetics and develop a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model to characterize the relationship between peripheral measurements of UDCA (and associated conjugates) and peripheral measures and/or central (brain) bioenergetic measurements.

To investigate the treatment effect of continuous transcranial magnetic stimulation on patients with Parkinson disease, and the underlying neural mechanism by functional MRI

Among the impairments associated to Parkinson's disease, gait disturbance is one of which that has the most negative impact on the independence in daily living activities and quality of life of people living with Parkinson's disease. Despite the considerable amount of research, we have no consensus about the most efficient physiotherapeutic approach to improve the gait disturbance. Mental practice is considered an efficient strategy to improve the motor performance in healthy individuals and people with stroke. However, there is scarce evidence about its therapeutic results to improve the gait performance in people living with Parkinson's disease. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the effects of gait mental practice associated to physical practice to improve the gait performance in people living with Parkinson's disease.

Based on published animal and human studies, ExAblate Transcranial subthalamotomy can be as safe and as effective as any of the surgical treatments within the currently accepted standard of care including radiofrequency lesioning and Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). A unilateral lesion of the subthalamic nucleus has shown reduction of contralateral motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). Using ExAblate Transcranial Magnetic Resonance guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (MRgHIFU) to create the subthalamotomy has several potential advantages over current therapies including the fact that transcranial lesioning can be performed in a precise manner with simultaneous as well as continuous clinical and radiographic monitoring. If the potential of ExAblate Transcranial subthalamotomy can be realized, it could supplant radiofrequency and radiosurgery techniques and provide a viable alternative procedure for subjects considering DBS.