Parkinson's Disease Clinical Trials in Philadelphia, PA

The Parkinson Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) is a longitudinal, observational, multi-center natural history study to assess progression of clinical features, digital outcomes, and imaging, biologic and genetic markers of Parkinson's disease (PD) progression in study participants with manifest PD, prodromal PD, and healthy controls. The overall goal of PPMI is to identify markers of disease progression for use in clinical trials of therapies to reduce progression of PD disability. Read Less

This study is aimed at testing the hypothesis that adaptive stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus (STN) drives changes in sleep episode maintenance and improves sleep quality. Investigators will directly test the efficacy of an adaptive stimulation protocol. Study subjects are adults with Parkinson's disease who experience inadequate motor symptom relief, and who have been offered implantation of a deep brain stimulator system targeting STN for the treatment of motor symptoms (standard-of-care). Investigators will implant 20 (n = 10 per clinical site) Parkinson's Disease subjects with the Medtronic RC+S System, enabling the implementation of real-time adaptive stimulation during in-home sleep. Prior to surgery, study subjects will complete clinical sleep questionnaires in an outpatient setting and wear an actigraphy watch for 3 weeks to monitor sleep architecture and sleep fragmentation. Three months after subjects have completed their standard-of-care Deep Brain Stimulation surgery and are optimized in terms of Parkinson's medication and clinical DBS stimulation parameters, we will monitor sleep for an additional 3 weeks, using in-home monitoring. During each week of the in-home monitoring period, subjects will undergo, in a randomized and double-blind fashion, one of three nocturnal stimulation algorithms: Adaptive stimulation, Open-Loop stimulation (standard clinical stimulation therapy) and No stimulation (control). During the 3 weeks of in-home sleep monitoring, we will monitor sleep architecture and sleep fragmentation using an actigraphy watch and subjects will complete a sleep questionnaire. At the end of the 3-week period of sleep-time randomized, blinded stimulation delivery, subjects will return to their standard stimulation therapy. Read Less

The research database contains demographic and family history information, longitudinal information on the clinical symptoms, neuropsychological profile and treatments, stored biological samples, and brain images of patients with Parkinson's disease and related disorders receiving care at the Parkinson's disease and Movement Disorders Center and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Read Less

This home-based study is a randomized (1:1) placebo-controlled trial of a single infusion of zoledronic acid-5 mg (ZA) for the prevention of fractures in men and women aged 60 years and older with Parkinson's disease and parkinsonism with at least 2 years of follow-up. A total of 3500 participants will be enrolled and randomized in the United States. Participants, follow-up outcome assessors, and study investigators will be blinded to assigned study treatment. This trial is funded by the National Institute of Aging. Read Less

Under a grant from the Department of Defense's PD program, Dr. Morley's is investigating new approaches that 1) use "gamification"- applying rules of games like point scoring, achieving silver, gold or platinum levels and competition-- to increase physical activity in PD; 2) identify whether certain PD patient respond differently to gamification interventions than others.; 3) use readily and commercially available (including Fitbits) digital health technologies to perform all study activities remotely and enable a "touchless" study where patients don't have to come in person for any studies visits. The study is underway and actively recruiting. Read Less

This study is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of dipraglurant in PD patients with dyskinesia (randomized 1:1 to receive active or placebo) for 12 weeks (1 week at 150 mg per day and 11 weeks at 300 mg per day). The primary efficacy assessment will be based on the Unified Dyskinesia Rating Scale (UDysRS). Patients who complete the 12-week blinded treatment period may have the option to roll into an open-label safety extension study for an additional 12-month treatment period. Read Less

This open-label study is designed to assess the long-term safety and tolerability of dipraglurant in PD patients for up to 52 weeks (at doses of 150-300 mg per day) for patients that have completed an Addex sponsored double-blind clinical trial of dipraglurant. Read Less

To test the feasibility of studying effects of smoking cessation with varenicline on antipsychotic drug-induced neurological side effects, we propose a 12 week pilot study of smoking cessation treatment with varenicline in 10 schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder patients who are actively smoking and have pre-existing TD while receiving stable doses of antipsychotics. Subjects will be followed after a 2 week baseline period to assess changes in smoking status and neurological symptoms using standardized rating scales. The aim is to examine clinically significant effects on antipsychotic-induced neurological side effects that may warrant further investigation. Read Less