Active clinical trials for "Brain Injuries, Traumatic"

The objective of this study is to further evaluate eye movements as an aid in the diagnosis of concussion / mTBI and the utility of eye movement assessment in the monitoring of symptoms over time after an initial diagnosis of concussion.

To evaluate the feasibility of CT perfusion technique to monitor the changes of blood perfusion in the brain tissue before and after skull repair using titanium mesh. To determine the best timing for skull repair using the three-dimensional titanium mesh; to compare the effects of early (1-3 months after decompression) and late-stage (6-12 months after decompression) skull repair on neurologic rehabilitation.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to trauma and/or neurologic disease is a leading cause of long-term disability in the United States. The loss of balance for people with a traumatic brain injury can have a large effect on their walking abilities and this can come with a number of challenges. There is a greater risk of falling after being discharged from the hospital. In addition, people are more likely to become sedentary after TBI, which leads to the loss of muscle strength. To help provide the best care, clinicians need accurate measurements when people begin their therapy, as well as throughout to ensure they are making appropriate progress. The tests currently used by clinicians may not provide the most accurate measurements that show what a person is capable of physically doing. The study you are being asked to participate in aims to provide more accurate measurements by using a robotic treadmill device and by assessing motivating factors that are important to you. The treadmill device will allow us to more accurately test your walking ability in a safe, fall-free environment.

The objective of this study is to assess the accuracy of a portable version of the EyeBOX device, an eye-tracking based diagnostic, in comparison to a clinical reference standard of concussion. The utility of the portable assessment to aid in the monitoring of symptoms over time after an initial diagnosis of concussion will also be evaluated.

Severe traumatic brain injury (STBI) is a leading cause of disability, mortality, and economic burden worldwide. The impact of severe traumatic brain injury (STBI) on the economy of developing countries like Pakistan is distressing. Pakistan has a large proportion of the young adult population in the World. Motorbike is the most common locomotive vehicle. These young ones are in the economically productive part of their lives. Their loss is an economical set back not only for their families but also for the Nation. Patients with STBI need standardized management in Neuro-critical care unit (NCCU). Although the setup and maintenance cost of an effective NCCU is one of the major burden on the budget of any public sector hospital, but the young survivor in turn can be productive for the Nation. During mechanical ventilation, severe traumatic brain injury patients frequently develop ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Ventilator-associated pneumonia can be evaluated using Clinical pulmonary infection score (CPIS). CPIS is considered as an important clinical indicator of pneumonia in NCCU. Bronchoalveolar Lavage (BAL) is a minimally invasive procedure done with instillation of normal saline into subsegments of the lung followed by suction and collection of the instilled fluid for analysis with flexible bronchoscope. Patients with moderate and severe traumatic brain injury usually present with altered conscious level, and most of them already have aspiration of vomitus, debris and secretions which increase the risk of VAP in them. Bronchoalveolar lavage can be helpful in preventing this dreadful VAP by clearing the airways. The aim of this study is to find out the effect of early Bronchoalveolar Lavage on severity of development of VAP assessed through clinical pulmonary infection score (CPIS) in TBI patients.

Objectives include: 1) establishing a psychometrically sound traumatic brain injury (TBI) screening measure for use among homeless veterans; 2) identifying the prevalence of those that screen positive for TBI among homeless veterans seeking VA services; and 3) comparing psychiatric and psychosocial outcomes between those with and without a history of TBI.

This research investigates processes involved with one being able to focus on relevant information and ignore non-relevant information in veterans with PTSD and those with a history of traumatic brain injury. In addition, this study evaluates whether there is an additive effect of having both PTSD and history of TBI on ability to focus attention and inhibit distracting information.

Tampere Traumatic head and brain injury study is a prospective study aiming to explore neuroradiological, neuropsychological, neurological and biochemical aspects of mild traumatic brain injury (mtbi). The main interest is on factors that effect to the outcome after mtbi. The study is conducted in Tampere University Hospital's emergency department between the 1st of August 2010 and 31st of July 2013.

The investigators hypothesize that individual differences exist in resting-state cortical attention, control, sensory, and emotion networks prior to noise exposure and these differences predispose some to the development of bothersome tinnitus. Furthermore, the investigators hypothesize that these changes in functional connectivity of these vulnerable systems after noise exposure are responsible for tinnitus. The proposed study will use a case-control cohort study design. Cases will be those soldiers who develop tinnitus and controls will be those who do not. This will be the first prospective study of tinnitus and will provide important information about the neurobiology of tinnitus. If a cortical neural network etiology for bothersome tinnitus is confirmed, it will be an astounding, powerful, paradigm shifting model for the diagnosis, prevention and, most importantly, treatment of tinnitus. Furthermore, if a battery of neurocognitive tests can identify soldiers at risk for the development of tinnitus then appropriate primary prevention strategies can be introduced. There are three Specific Aims to this project. Specific Aim 1. To determine if soldiers who develop tinnitus display pre-deployment differences in a set of physical, functional, cognitive, vulnerability, perpetuating factors, pre-deployment neurocognitive scores, or neuroimaging features compared to soldiers who do not develop tinnitus ("control group"). Specific Aim 2. To determine if particular scores on neurocognitive tests or neuroimaging features of functional/structural connectivity networks are associated with the development of tinnitus. Specific Aim 3. To identify a set of pre-deployment physical, functional, cognitive, vulnerability, and perpetuating factors, neurocognitive responses, and neuroimaging features that are associated with the development of tinnitus. The investigators plan to recruit 200 soldiers, between the ages of 18 and 30 years who do not have hearing loss or tinnitus and have never been deployed to military theater. The soldier participants will undergo a variety of tests before and after deployment, which will include a hearing test, neurocognitive tests (i.e., brain function tests), and a variety of novel radiologic imaging studies of the brain. One of these novel radiologic imaging studies is functional connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a proven methodology that monitors changes in brain activity and connections based on blood flow between different brain areas and levels of consumption of oxygen. This information is used to describe the condition of important neural networks responsible for such things as attention, mood, sensation, vision, hearing, and introspection or self-contemplation.

The primary aims of this study are to: 1) Establish the concurrent criterion-related validity of four traumatic brain injury (TBI) screening questions (TBI-4) using the Ohio State University TBI Identification Method (OSU TBI-ID) and 2) Establish the concurrent criterion-related validity of the TBI-4 with the addition of detailed information elicited by the four questions. Secondary aims include: 1) Determining if the addition of detailed information elicited by the TBI-4 results in increased specificity; 2) Determining whether the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in this sample is concordant with previous research; and 3) Determining whether psychiatric outcomes are worse for veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI) than those with no traumatic brain injury(TBI).