Active clinical trials for "Motor Neuron Disease"

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and fatal neurological disease. Nonspecific symptoms lead to a delay in the diagnosis, only confirmed by the electrophysiologic study. Objectives. To establish the diagnostic value of ultrasonography in ALS. To evaluate the rate of muscle and nerve degeneration by ultrasonography in patients with ALS. To check the relationship between ultrasound, clinical variables and functional tests in patients with ALS. Methods. A longitudinal observational study in a consecutive sample of patients diagnosed with ALS will be realized. All the patients will be examined 3 times during 6 months and capabilities associated with ALS and muscle strength will be assessed. Bilateral and cross sectional ultrasonography of several muscles and also median and tibial nerves will be performed. All the images will be processed and analyzed for obtaining morphometric variables (muscle thickness and nerve area) and textural ones (echogenic variation, entropy, homogeneity, textural contrast and correlation). Frequency of twitches will be also recorded. After longitudinal study, a survival study will be performed in relation to functional and sonographic variables.

The investigators aim at exploring the differential/topographical in-situ expression of cytokines in the central nervous system (CNS) of patients who died with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), using archived histopathology slides and residual paraffin blocks from autopsied cases. Previous studies from the investigators and other groups showed that inflammatory cytokines are implicated in several neurological affections, particularly neurodegenerative conditions. However, in-situ cytokine expression has never been studied so far in ALS. The investigators wanted to see if these neuro-mediators are involved in the neuromolecular chain/cascade underlying ALS.

This research study is being performed to better understand a specific form of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) caused by a mutation (or abnormality) of the C9ORF72 gene. This mutation is the most common genetic cause of ALS, and is present in 40% of ALS patients with a family history of ALS and 5-10% of ALS patients without a family history of ALS.

The purpose of this research study is to evaluate tau distribution in the brain of subjects with: ALS caused by different genetic mutations, any mutation carriers (with or without symptoms), any non-mutation carrier, any sporadic FTD, normal controls.

There is a lack of prospective and population-based epidemiological data on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Germany so far. The purpose of this registry is to investigate the incidence, course and phenotypic variety of ALS in Rhineland-Palatinate, a South-West German state of about 4 million inhabitants.

Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD) is the neuropathological term for a collection of rare neurodegenerative diseases that correspond to four main overlapping clinical syndromes: frontotemporal dementia (FTD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), corticobasal degeneration syndrome (CBS) and progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome (PSPS). The goal of this study is to build a FTLD clinical research consortium to support the development of FTLD therapies for new clinical trials. The consortium, referred to as Advancing Research and Treatment for Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (ARTFL), will be headquartered at UCSF and will partner with six patient advocacy groups to manage the consortium. Participants will be evaluated at 14 clinical sites throughout North America and a genetics core will genotype all individuals for FTLD associated genes.

Non-invasive ventilation (NIV) has already shown to improve survival and quality of life in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Quality of sleep seems already to be impaired in patients with preserved diaphragmatic dysfunction. Until now, only few research has been performed on the quality of sleep in patients with ALS when using NIV, and these data are mainly based on patient reported outcomes.Further on, only very little research has been done on patient-ventilator interaction. Our study would like to perform research on quality of sleep before and after NIV use by using full polysomnography with incorporation of transcutaneous carbon dioxide measurement and built-in ventilator software.

A new strength measurement device called Accurate Test of Limb Isometric Strength (ATLIS) was developed to precisely and conveniently measure static limb strength in patients with ALS. The investigators will compare ATLIS data with data from two commonly used ALS outcomes measures, the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R) and slow vital capacity (SVC) in a prospective, longitudinal study. All three outcomes measures will be performed on 100 subjects collected preferably at bi-monthly clinic visits during the study period.

This is a parallel group, single institution, prospective clinical study. The purpose of this study is to assess whether the Jawbone Up 24, a consumer based accelerometer, can be a feasible tool to study physical activity in cancer patients and patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Up to 50% of patients affected with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can show behavioral dysfunctions within the spectrum of frontotemporal degenerations (FTD) - namely, apathy, disinhibition, loss of sympathy/empathy, perseverative and stereotyped behaviours, dietary changes [Strong et al., 2017]. The Beaumont Behavioural Inventory (BBI) [Elamin et al., 2017] is a questionnaire designed for detecting FTD-spectrum behavioural changes in ALS patients. The present study aims at both validating the BBI in an Italian ALS population and determining normative cut-off values of the instrument.