Active clinical trials for "Parkinson Disease"

The purpose of this study is to improve understanding of neurological conditions. Patients participating in this study will continue receiving medical care, routine laboratory tests, and diagnostics tests (X-rays, CT-scans, and nuclear imaging), from their primary care physician. Doctors at the NIH plan to follow these patients and offer advice and assistance to their primary care physicians.

The aims of this proposal include tests of hypotheses of the pathogenetic mechanisms of noradrenergic neurotransmission in Parkinson's disease in vivo, using positron emission tomography of patients with early and advanced Parkinson's disease with or without 3,4 L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) - induced dyskinesia or co-morbid depression, and evaluation of whether these mechanisms can be influenced therapeutically. Hypotheses: The investigators argue that release in human cortical and subcortical brain regions of norepinephrine (NE) derived from metabolism of exogenousL-DOPA is greater in Parkinson's disease patients with L-DOPA- induced dyskinesia than in patients without this complication. This hypothesis will be tested by measuring antagonist [11C]yohimbine binding to alpha-2 adrenoceptors before and after L-DOPA challenge. If so, it is argued that the greater rise of norepinephrine, measured as [11C]yohimbine displacement after L-DOPA challenge, is the result of down-regulation or loss of norepinephrine transporters. This hypothesis will be tested by measuring the binding of [11C]MeNER, a tracer of norepinephrine transporters. If so, the investigators argue that the greater decline of [11C]MeNER binding is significantly correlated to the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, as proof that patients with more severe loss of noradrenergic terminals exhibit more severe motor deficits.

The purpose of this study is to understand variation in the symptoms of Parkinson disease. This study uses an iPhone app to record these symptoms through questionnaires and sensors.

The aim of this study is to compare personality and social cognition changes, including emotion detection and self-awareness, and neuroanatomical correlates in patients, and how that affects the caregiver-patient relationship.

Deep brain stimulation of the sub thalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) is an efficient treatment to improve motor and non motor signs of Parkinson's disease (PD). In people aged more 70 years, an increased rate of side effects such as post-operative cognitive decline and/or postural instability with falls has been suspected with less improvement in the quality of life. Here, Investigators aim further explore the effects of STN-DBS in 50 patients with PD people aged more 69 years in a randomized parallel controlled study.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of deep brain stimulation in the the globus pallidus (Gpi) on freezing of gait in patients with Parkinson's disease.

The objective of the ADDIA clinical Proof-of-Performance study is to validate the performance of ADDIA' blood biomarkers for diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). ADDIA clinical study is a multi-centre, non-interventional, prospective, proof-of-performance study with only one visit. About 800 well-characterized subjects will be recruited into 3 groups in 2:1:1 ratio, namely patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), patients with non-AD neurodegenerative disease (NAD) and 200 control subjects (healthy as compared to their age). 400 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD): 200 patients with mild AD, 200 patients with moderate-to-severe AD, 200 patients with non-Alzheimer's neurodegenerative diseases (NAD), 200 controls (healthy as compared to their age).

The present study examines the effectiveness of the rehabilitation program in the framework of the "Ezra LeMarpeh" project for Parkinson's patients. The Ezra LeMarpeh Association, founded by Rabbi A. E. Firer, provides assistance to the sick and needy. The site features a wide range of advanced, high quality rehabilitation devices, a unique hydrotherapy pool and associated accessories that enable the staff to provide the finest quality and most professional treatment. Before entering a rehabilitative program, each participant will arrive independently at the Ezra LeMarpeh Center for evaluation tests and will undergo comprehensive evaluation tests by the center's physiotherapist, including walking tests, balance tests, filling out questionnaires to assess Quality of life and disease severity. At the end of the program, the participants will be asked to repeat evaluation tests.

Gait impairments of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) limit the independence in the daily activities and sensibly increase the risk of falls. New gait analysis methods, based on wearable inertial sensors, have been proposed to track the gait features during treatment and in real-life conditions. Gait training based on auditory cues as Rhythmical Auditory Stimulation (RAS) have preliminarily shown positive effects improving gait velocity, stride length, step cadence of walking in PD. In the current project, the research group will aim to develop a smartphone application (Parkinson App Smartphone Aimed: P.A.St.A.) integrated with sensors and RAS. In a second time, investigators will analyze the spatio-temporal gait parameters obtained by the wearable sensors and the sociodemographic and clinical data, thus generating a big data set, to improve the knowledge about current pharmacological therapies and rehabilitation.

The primary aim of the study is to conclusively demonstrate the possibility of using the following molecules, α-Synuclein, LRRK2 and Parkin individually or in combination as biomarkers for Parkinson's disease (PD) progression in patients/ carriers of Gaucher disease (GD). All the assays will be performed only using peripheral blood, thus the identification of a peripheral marker that can be used in both diagnosis and prognosis of the disease and symptom severity would lead to a fast, efficient and reliable assay that can be performed on an easily accessible tissue type outside of the brain. It is now known that patients with GD, even carriers with one mutated GBA gene (OMIM 606463) are at a higher risk for developing PD, and at an earlier age. In an attempt to assess whether GBA alterations would also impact α-Synuclein and Parkin metabolism in humans, the expression at both molecular and protein level in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) will be investigated.