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546 active trials for Parkinson Disease

Virtual-reality for Upper Limb Rehabilitation in People With Parkinson's Disease

The aim of this study is to assess the effect of 8-week physiotherapy training using immersive virtual reality (VR-training) compared to a physiotherapy training performed in a real setting (RS-training) on handwriting and touch screen technology-based activities, brain functional activity and cognition in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Both groups will perform upper limb exercises focused at improving movement amplitude and speed during several activities such as writing and using touch screen-technology. Participants randomized to VR-training (N=20) will perform exercises under the augmented visual feedback induced by the VR aimed at stimulating movement amplitude and speed. Participants randomized to RS-training (N=20) will perform exercises in a real setting. Before training, after training (8 weeks) and at 3-month follow-up (20 weeks), subjects with PD will undergo clinical evaluations (neurological, physiotherapy and neuropsychological) while taking their regular anti-parkinsonian drugs (on-medication state). MRI scans will be acquired at each time-point to assess brain activity reorganization during off state (MRI scans will be acquired at least 12 hours after the regular evening dopaminergic therapy administration to mitigate the pharmacological effects on neural activity). A sample of matched healthy subjects (N=15) will undergo clinical, physiotherapy, neuropsychological and MRI assessments only at study entry as a benchmark.

Start: May 2021
User-friendliness of a Portable Driving Simulator

The use of simulators to retrain driving skills of patients with stroke, Parkinson's disease (PD), or multiple sclerosis (MS) is very limited because of cost, space required, and incidence of simulator sickness in high fidelity simulators. The Principal investigator recently developed a low cost low fidelity portable driving simulator (PDS). In this pilot study, the study team will (1) determine the ease of use and occurrence of simulator sickness while operating the low fidelity PDS in a clinic setting and (2) the efficacy of the low fidelity PDS to reproduce the benefits from retraining impaired driving skills of stroke survivors in a high-fidelity simulator. Participants: 30 participants, separated according to neurological condition including stroke, PD, or MS, will be randomly allocated to either the PDS or fixed-base high-fidelity simulator training. Each participant will undergo a pre-training evaluation, five hours of designated training and a post-training assessment, similar to the pre-training evaluation. Data will be analyzed according to study aims. The investigators hypothesize that the simple set up of the PDS will make it easier to use and better decrease the incidence of simulator sickness that typically leads to stopping therapy than the high-fidelity simulator. The investigators hypothesize that improvements in lane maintenance, adherence to speed limits, reaction to traffic lights, and overall reaction time after training using the PDS will not be significantly different from improvements observed after training using the high-fidelity driving simulator.

Start: August 2019
Sonification Techniques for Gait Training

Music therapy is widely used in relational and rehabilitation settings. In addition to Neurologic Music Therapy and other music-based techniques, "sonification" approaches were recently introduced in the field of rehabilitation. The "sonification" can be defined as a properly selected set of sonorous-music stimuli are associated with patient movements mapping. In fact, the auditory-motor feedback can replace damaged proprioceptive circuits with a consequent improvement of the rehabilitation process. Interventions with "sonification" facilitate sensorimotor learning, proprioception and movements planning and execution improving global motor parameters. This study proposes the use of musical auditory cues which includes the melodic-harmonic component of the music. This kind of sonification makes the feedback pleasant and predictable as well as potentially effective. The investigators propose to apply and assess the effectiveness of this kind of sonification on gait training and other secondary outcomes in stroke, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis population. Also, the investigators will assess the impact of "sonification" on the level of fatigue perceived during the rehabilitation process and on the quality of life. The study is a multicenter randomized controlled trial and will involve 120 patients that will undergo standard motor rehabilitation or the same rehabilitation but with the sonification support. The interventions will be evaluated at the baseline, after 10 sessions, after 20 sessions and at follow-up (one month after the end of the treatment). The assessment will include functional, motor, fatigue and quality of life evaluations. The collected data will be statistically processed.

Start: January 2021
Brain Sensing in Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders

High-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment strategy for a variety of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, dystonia and tremor1-5, as well as for other neurological and psychiatric disorders e.g. obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, cluster headache, Tourette syndrome, epilepsy and eating disorders6-11. It is currently applied in a continuous fashion, using parameters set by the treating clinician. This approach is non-physiological, as it applies a constant, unchanging therapy to a dysfunctional neuronal system that would normally fluctuate markedly on a moment-by moment basis, depending on external stressors, cognitive load, physical activity and the timing of medication administration. Fluctuations in physical symptoms reflect fluctuations in brain activity. Tracking and responding in real-time to these would allow personalised approaches to DBS through stimulating at appropriate intensities and only when necessary, thereby improving therapeutic efficacy, preserving battery life and potentially limiting side-effects12. Critical to the development of such adaptive/closed-loop DBS technologies is the identification of robust signals on which to base the delivery of variable high-frequency deep brain stimulation. Local field potentials (LFPs), which are recordable through standard DBS electrodes, represent synchronous neuronal discharges within the basal ganglia. Different LFP signatures have been identified in different disorders, as well as in different clinical states within individual disorders. For example, low frequency LFPs in the Alpha/Theta ranges (4-12Hz) are frequently encountered in patients with Dystonia13,14, while both beta (12-30Hz) gamma (60-90Hz) band frequencies may be seen in Parkinson's disease, when the patient is OFF and dyskinetic, respectively15,16. Equally, suppression of these abnormal basal ganglia signals through medication administration or high-frequency DBS correlates with clinical improvement. As such, they represent attractive electrophysiologic biomarkers on which to base adaptive DBS approaches. Until recently, neurophysiological assessments were purely a research tool, as they could only be recorded either intra-operatively or for a short period of time post-operatively using externalised DBS electrodes. However, advances in DBS technology now allow real-time LFP recordings to be simply and seamlessly obtained from fully implanted DBS systems e.g. Medtronic Percept PC. In this study, we will evaluate a cohort of patients with movement disorders and other disorders of basal ganglia circuitry who have implanted DBS systems. Recordings of LFPs and/or non-invasive data such as EEG, limb muscle activation and movement (surface EMG and motion tracking) under various conditions (e.g. voluntary movement, ON/OFF medications, ON/OFF stimulation) will allow us to evaluate their utility as markers of underlying disease phenotype and severity and to assess their potential for use as electrophysiological biomarkers in adaptive DBS approaches. These evaluations in patients with DBS systems with and without LFP-sensing capabilities will take place during a single or multi-day evaluation (depending on patient preference and researcher availability). This study will advance not only the understanding of subcortical physiology in various disorders, but will also provide information about how neurophysiological and behavioural biomarkers can be used to inform personalised, precision closed-loop DBS approaches.

Start: July 2021