Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

The goal of this research is to find ways to maximize the benefits of antipsychotic medications for cognition. Hypothesis: Risperidone and olanzapine will show greater benefits than conventional medications on assessments of social cognition, particularly affect perception and social perception.

The primary purpose of this study is to compare the affects of aripiprazole and olanzapine on weight change.

Study of a medication for the treatment of Schizophrenia in patients who are already taking Abilify, Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa

Motor slowing is a hallmark, clinical sign in mental illness. Slowness can be related to a specific disease process, as in negative schizophrenia or depression or it can be the result of medications used to treat forms of mental illness. Prior research has lead to a novel instrumental approach for distinguishing subtypes of motor slowing - one type related to cognitive processes and another related to parkinsonism. The purpose of this study is to test whether new medications used to treat schizophrenia improve the cognitive or parkinsonian components of motor slowing. Patients will be studied in the laboratory before and 8-weeks after starting a new antipsychotic. The n of this study = 60 patients. The results of this study will improve our understanding of the complex interactions between cognitive processing and motor behavior in patients with psychotic illnesses and how drugs work to treat these problems.

This study will evaluate electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in patients who have not responded adequately to clozapine.

Background: Difficulties in social interactions are a central characteristic of people with schizophrenia, and can be partly explained by impairments of social cognitive processes. According to renown researchers, three to five social cognitive processes are usually altered in schizophrenia: (1) emotional processing; (2) theory of mind (ToM); (3) attributional style; and (4 and 5) social perception and knowledge. The components of social cognition appear to be related to both symptomatology and functioning in everyday life. New strategies of cognitive remediation have been recently developed to target these deficits and few meta analyses have assessed the extent to which social cognitive remediation programs have led to multiple improvements for schizophrenia patients. Overall, it seems that such therapies showed encouraging results in both patient interest and motivation, and social cognitive processes. The RC2S therapy is the first individualized and partly computerized program through which patients practice social interactions and develop social cognitive abilities with simulation techniques in a realistic environment.

Treatment of verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia is clinically challenging for both the patient and the therapist. For the therapist, one of the main difficulties arises from the impossibility of directly communicating with the entity persecuting the patient. For the patient, the therapeutic process is challenging because it aims at getting to better cope with an entity that keeps repeating stereotyped and abusive sentences without having the emotional strength to reply to the persecutor. To help overcome these clinical challenges, virtual reality enable patients to recreate the face and the voice of their persecutor.The hypothesis is that the engagement of patients in a dialogue with an external representation of their persecutor, with the support of the therapist, would help them to gain better control over their voices.

A randomized placebo-controlled trial of arithmetic training (with the Kumon Method) as an errorless learning method for improvement of cognition in schizophrenia. Outpatients were included after signing an informed consent. The trial consisted of 48 sessions of arithmetic training (twice a week, for 6 months) or placebo (nonspecific recreation, 48 sessions). The patients were evaluated with a neuropsychological battery at baseline, after 6 months (end of intervention) and after 12 months after baseline. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Personal and Social Performance scale (PSP) were applied at baseline, after 6 months (end of intervention) and 12 months after baseline. Primary outcome was the performance on three cognitive domains (attention, executive functions and working memory).

This study will further assess ERG components obtained with different ERG devices, to be considered in a prediction model for each diagnosis. The prediction models are diaMentis proprietary software used as an ERG-based diagnostic test (classified as a Software as Medical Device, SaMD) to support the diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder type I. They involve the processing and analysis of specific retinal biosignatures (RSPA) with the support of statistical and mathematical modelling processes e.g. machine learning and statistical learning.

Case series design with participants with psychosis with a history of interpersonal trauma/abuse and current distressing auditory verbal hallucinations and dissociative experience. Participants were offered up to 24 therapy sessions over a 6-month intervention window.