Active clinical trials for "Psychotic Disorders"

Older adults with psychotic disorders experience a dual set of challenges: those related to serious mental illness, and those related to aging. They have medical, cognitive, psychological and social difficulties; as a result they have an almost four times greater likelihood of early institutionalization in nursing homes. These challenges make it difficult for this group to engage in health behaviors, such as exercise. This is unfortunate, since participation in health-promoting activities is essential for maintaining functional independence with age. This study aims to develop and pilot test a peer coaching intervention for older Veterans with psychotic disorders, in which VA Peer Specialists, who are Veterans in recovery from mental illness, will provide intensive coaching to older Veterans with psychotic disorders to promote their participation in exercise and physical activity. Results from this study will inform us as to whether this intervention is acceptable to Veterans, feasible to implement, and effective in increasing exercise, physical activity, and physical fitness/function.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether cognitive training exercises can improve cognitive functioning in young patients with recent-onset psychosis who are being treated in community mental health settings using the NAVIGATE model. The investigators will examine the effects of web-based cognitive training exercises delivered on iPads. Participants will be randomized to one of three conditions, and will be assessed at Baseline, Post-Intervention, and 6 Month Follow Up on measures of clinical, neurocognitive, and functional status.

Purpose and objective Schizophrenia is a chronic debilitating illness with cognitive deficits that cause serious impairment in psychosocial recovery and with few treatments to remediate these deficits. One area that holds great promise for the development of novel, effective therapies is noninvasive brain stimulation. The investigators have used one form of brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), for some time to modulate and enhance cognitive function in the brain, especially working memory (WM) function, which has a central role in most executive processing that occurs in the brain. Theta burst stimulation (TBS) is a paradigm of TMS which has been shown to effectively modulate WM. Moreover, TBS can modulate gamma neural oscillations in the brain and neural activity, both of which have been implicated in the physiology of WM and pathophysiology of the disease process in schizophrenia, making these measures highly valuable for assessing physiological effects of TBS on cognition, quality of life and cortical inhibition. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of TBS on WM in patients with schizophrenia, to develop evidence for potential brain stimulation techniques to treat cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Study activities and population group: Study subjects will be inpatient schizophrenic individuals with minimal positive symptoms and predominant cognitive deficits at Duke University Hospital. In an initial session they will be screened and taught a WM task. Following this, one TBS session will follow in which TBS will target dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. They will perform the WM task before, with and after the TBS, with an expected pre-post enhancement of WM performance. Implications - There is a great need for treatments for cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. The results of this study will serve to generate pilot data for a much larger grant to develop a TBS therapy for remediating such cognitive deficits.

Primary study: This study is a single-site, double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial to compare an evidence-based structured program of 30-35 hours of on-line cognitive and social cognitive training exercises performed over 16 weeks (~2 hours per week), delivered with an innovative digital app which provides users with a motivation coach to set personalized goals and with secure social networking for peer support, "PRIME" ; vs. 2) A control condition of computer games, encouraged at ~2 hours per week over 16 weeks, delivered with "PRIME". Unblinded Cognitive Training Sub-Study: Participants who were randomized to the computer games arm of the trial may be offered access to the active cognitive training at the end of their 6 month follow up appointments, if they still meet inclusion criteria. PRIME Super Users Sub-Study: Participants who have provided all follow up data to the initial study, including those who are currently enrolled in the Unblinded Cognitive Training sub-study, may be offered continued participation in the PRIME community as super-users.

The aim of the present single-blind randomized-controlled therapy study is to assess the efficacy of a new form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for delusions with a focus on emotion regulation, improvement of self-esteem and sleep quality (CBTd-E).

The present study aims to investigate whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) reduces auditory hallucinations in patients with psychosis. In addition, the neuronal changes of tDCS will be examined.

To test the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) versus enhanced Treatment as Usual (eTAU) delivered by hospital staff for inpatients with psychotic-spectrum disorders.

This clinical trial tests the feasibility, effectiveness and patient satisfaction with cognitive remediation therapy for patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder within a forensic hospital. It is hypothesised that patients receiving cognitive remediation therapy will have an improvement in cognitive performance, real world functioning, symptoms, violence risk and benefit more from additional psychosocial treatment programmes over time relative to patients receiving treatment as usual. Furthermore it is hypothesised that it will be feasible to carry out such a study and that patients will report high rates of satisfaction with cognitive remediation therapy. Finally it is hypothesised that differences on the effectiveness measures will be maintained at 6 month follow up after the end of treatment.

24 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders, who are currently considered stable, will be recruited, screened for entry criteria into a blinded study with a 4-week randomization to either lurasidone, haloperidol, or perphenazine to examine glutamate-related outcomes with lurasidone as compared to haloperidol and perphenazine.

The present study wants to evaluate the efficacy of a short psychoeducational type group intervention and Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) 3rd wave on the severity of hallucinatory Acoustico-Verbal (HAV) symptomatology in patients with schizophrenia.