Active clinical trials for "Paresis"

Partial or complete facial paralysis is the weakness of muscles of facial expression. Facial paralysis causes physical, social and emotional problems. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) for facial paralysis is a technique in which muscles are electrically stimulated, causing them to contract This study is designed to help patients with facial nerve weakness.

The purpose of this study is to improve control of myoelectrically-controlled advanced orthotic devices (an exoskeleton device that use the body's muscle signals to drive movements of a robotic brace) by using advanced predictive decode algorithms, and the use of high count (> 8) surface electromyographic (sEMG) electrodes.

Stroke is a leading cause of disability that often impairs arm function and activities of daily living. The costs of rehabilitation are significant and practical constraints often limit therapy to the first few months after stroke. However many studies have shown that patients in the later stages post-stroke can still continue to benefit from rehabilitation. Technology-assisted therapy may offer a means to efficiently provide ongoing therapies to patients in the later stages (>6 months) post-stroke. This study will determine which patients are best able to benefit from this therapy approach, and will also expand our knowledge of which brain structures need to be intact for patients to benefit from technology-assisted training. The results of this study will help to improve rehabilitation and quality of life for disabled Americans.

This research study will investigate the use of smart lower limb robotic exoskeleton (developed by the CSIC, Spain) in rehabilitation after stroke. It will compare robotic-assisted rehabilitation with supervised motor practice. Additionally, it will also examine the use of noninvasive scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to learn specific brain wave patterns associated with learning to walk on the powered lower limb exoskeleton. The findings will be used to understand human-robot interaction and to design smart orthotic devices that can be controlled by thought activity and assist those that have lost all or part of their walking abilities.

Nordic walking is a physical activity consisting of walking with poles similar to ski poles. The poles are designed for the purpose of activating the upper body during walking. The poles are equipped with rubber or spike tips and the walking itself resembles.

The objective of this project is to study the effects of an emerging noninvasive neuromodulation strategy in human stroke survivors with movement-related disability. Muscle weakness after stroke results from the abnormal interaction between cells in the brain that send commands to control movement and cells in the spinal cord that cause muscles to produce movement. The neuromodulation strategy central to this project has been shown the strengthen the physical connection between both cells, producing a change in movement potential of muscles weakened by stroke.

The purpose of the study is to validate the use of smart and widespread instruments to detect kinematic, kinetic and spatio-temporal parameters in gait and postural analysis in hemiparetic and healthy individuals. Device as single Microsoft sensor Kinect v2, wearable sensorized clothing and/or smartphone-type devices will be used; it is also planned to analyze and compare such parameters with those obtained through a technique of manual palpatory analysis. Finally the obtained measures will be compared with the corresponding ones obtained with Three-dimensional instrumented gait analysis (3D-GA).

In this mono-center pilot trial, surgical patients who are at high risk to be admitted to intensive care will be screened and asked for participation. We are going to take blood and muscle samples at respecified time points to do metabolic, histological and molecular testing. Aim of the study is to investigate (1) changes of the blood metabolome in patients with ICUAW (intensive care unit acquired weakness) and (2) identify metabolic components who are responsible for ICUAW or can be used as marker for ICUAW.

The goal of this prospective, open label cohort study is to assess functional and motor outcomes in individuals with cervical spinal cord injury who have undergone nerve transfer surgery, with the goal of increasing upper limb function. We will also compare these outcomes to a cohort of similarly matched individuals who have not undergone nerve transfer surgery, using robust outcome measures, rigorous pre-operative clinical and neurophysiological assessments, and standardized rehabilitation. At the end of this project we aim to develop a model for predicting nerve transfer outcomes using pre-operative clinical and neurophysiological characteristics.

Sequences of muscle tendon vibrations allow to reproduce the sensory feedback during movement like locomotion and kinaesthesia. It is known that such a treatment promotes motor recovery after stroke assuming that it enhances neuroplasticity. The aim of the research is to study the activity in cerebrospinal circuitry to evaluate the neuroplastic changes during and after instrumented proprioceptive rehabilitation relying on sequences of muscle vibration in subacute stroke stages.