51 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This prospective randomized study will assess an emergency department (ED) based prevention strategy in geriatric patients at high risk for recurrent falls and injury. Falling is a major health hazard in older adults with a number of proposed but unproven protocols to prevent fall-related injuries. This study proposes to study one of these strategies, the CDC's Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths and Injuries program (the STEADI Program).
We will compare two programs that are designed to help older adults who have had fall injuries manage anxiety and improve their level of functioning. We expect that both programs will provide some benefit, but that one will promote better management.
Falls are the leading cause of nonfatal injuries in the United States and the second leading cause of all unintentional injury deaths. Each year fractures of the hip account for about 200,000 hospitalizations among the elderly and falls are contributing factors in 40 percent of admissions to nursing homes. About 30 percent of community-dwelling elderly fall each year, with about 10 percent seeking emergency medical help for a fall injury. Data from CDC-funded study to assess falls among the elderly (SAFE) suggest that as many as 41 percent of elderly patients fall at home in the year following discharge from hospitalization due in part to deconditioning associated with inactivity.
The purpose of this study is to determine if a fall preparedness program can reduce the fear of falling in older adults and subsequently improve their function and reduce falls with injury. Participants will perform baseline measures 4 weeks before intervention and again at the start of intervention. They will perform a 12-week intervention and then complete outcome measures again at the conclusion of the program.
The ability to successfully integrate information across sensory systems is a vital aspect of functioning in the real world. To date, only a few studies have investigated the clinical translational value of multisensory integration processes. Previous work has linked the magnitude of visual-somatosensory integration (measured behaviorally using simple reaction time tasks) to important cognitive (attention) and motor (balance, gait, and falls) outcomes in healthy older adults. While multisensory integration effects have been measured across a wide array of populations using various sensory combinations and different neuroscience approaches, a gold standard for quantifying multisensory integration has been lacking. The investigator recently developed a step-by-step protocol for administering and calculating multisensory integration effects in an effort to facilitate innovative and novel translational research across diverse clinical populations and age-ranges. However, patients with severe medical conditions and/or mobility limitations often experience difficulty traveling to research facilities or joining time-demanding research protocols. Using the aforementioned protocol, the study team invented a mobile multisensory falls-assessment iPhone app called CatchU to facilitate physician discussion and counseling of falls in older adults during clinical visits (e.g., annual wellness visits with a subsequent telehealth call), in an attempt to alleviate disability, promote independence, and increase quality of life for older adults. The investigator team has provided a cross-sectional research proposal for a pilot study of 300 patients (over a 24-month period) in order to demonstrate acceptable-to-excellent predicative accuracy of CatchU for identifying older adults at-risk for falls.
Falls are the leading cause of accidental injury and injury-related death among older adults. Despite evidence that falls can be prevented, fall related injuries have not declined over time. Current fall injury prevention techniques targeting mobility and bone strength have merit yet their effectiveness is limited. Indeed, a recent Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute/National Institute on Aging funded pragmatic trial of individualized multifactorial strategy to prevent serious fall injuries in over 5500 seniors revealed no difference in fall injuries between the intervention and standard care arm. The inconclusive results of the investigation may be due in part to focusing on fall prevention rather than mitigation of fall-related impact acceleration and forces - the "fundamental variables" for injury prevention. A fall-related injury occurs when the body hits the ground with force that is greater than tissue strength. Development of innovative approaches that focus on fundamental variables of injury prevention is needed.
The research surrounding best practice guidelines of geriatric trauma patients in the inpatient setting is broad. Furthermore, the comprehensiveness of research programs varies based on individual hospital resource capacity. American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Improvement Program (ACS TQIP) Geriatric Trauma Management Guidelines1 details a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to inpatient management; however, guideline effectiveness is diminished as many hospitals may implement a version of the guidelines limited by staffing, ancillary services, and resource capacity, among other variables.
An important challenge for the field of injury prevention and control is the translation of research findings into effective community-based prevention programs and practices. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control believes that dissemination research can overcome this challenge by providing insight into the structures and methods needed to translate injury control research into everyday practice. The proposed dissemination research study will rigorously assess whether the use of a "facilitative system" can successfully bridge the gap between injury prevention and control research and the implementation of evidence-driven, community-based programs, policies, and practices. The facilitative system links communities with academic partners to provide communities with the skills and resources needed to help facilitate the community health improvement process. The system identifies what assets are available within communities, as well as the skills and resources needed to work through the community health improvement process. The facilitative system will then provide technical assistance, best practices guides, and direct consultation in carrying out all phases of the community health improvement process. This information is designed to increase community capacity in community assessment, coalition development, accessing and interpreting local injury prevention data, searching and selecting evidence-based research, and program planning and evaluation. The study will use a randomized community trial design to evaluate fall injury occurrence and process measures of program implementation in three groups of communities: * a control group receiving no special resources or guidance related to fall injury prevention or the community health improvement process; * a "Standard Program" group receiving modest funding to implement an "evidence-based" fall prevention program in their local community; * a "Facilitative System" group receiving facilitative system support in addition to the resources provided the Standard Program group. We hypothesize that the Facilitative System program will be more effective at: * reducing fall-related injuries in the elderly; * building community coalitions that are goal-oriented and sustainable; * implementing community-based, evidence-driven fall prevention programs that are both tailored to the community needs and yet faithful to empirically-tested fall prevention research studies
This project will test the effectiveness of a novel intervention consisting of unobtrusive, low-intensity, horizontal and vertical lights that outline the bathroom or entry way doorframe in residents' rooms and provide visual cues to promote postural stability. Specifically, this pragmatic crossover trial will enroll 390 assisted living residents with dementia and follow them for one year, comparing the incidence of nighttime falls during the lighting condition to the incidence of falls during the control condition; secondarily, it will determine whether and to what extent the intervention effect is modified by resident- and environmental-level risk factors, and satisfaction with the lighting system.
Falls are the primary cause of traumatic injury in older adults, and tripping is the leading cause of falls. A robust method for improving aging-related proprioceptive deficits is lacking, while strong evidence shows that proprioception deficits are highly associated with poor balance recovery from tripping. Previous research suggested that stochastic vibratory stimulation (SVS) can influence proprioception (i.e., muscle spindle function) among healthy controls; however, it is not clear how older adults with deficits in muscle spindle function would react to SVS. In previous work the investigators showed promising findings of standing balance and timed-up-and-go (TUG) improvements using SVS among high fall risk older adults with history of fall 15-18. They will implement SVS in the current project to improve aging-related proprioceptive deficits. The hypothesis is that SVS improves muscle spindle function and balance recovery from tripping in older adults with proprioceptive deficits.
Multi-center, comparative, non-significant risk adaptive study with retrospective controls. After providing informed consent and being screened for eligibility, intervention subjects will be prescribed and provided an appropriately sized Tango Belt. The subject must demonstrate a minimum of 64% adherence to the use of the Tango Belt within 14 days of initiation to fully enroll in the study. Upon demonstration of at least minimum adherence, the subject will be provided the Tango Belt to wear continuously for at least 6 months, except during bathing, device charging, and as deemed by clinical staff. The study will investigate the safety and effectiveness of the Tango Belt with the primary and secondary endpoints being taken every 3 months and at the end of the study run time from the electronic medical record. Additionally, ancillary endpoints on adverse events and device performance will be gathered.
The overarching objective of this study is to improve fall prevention efforts in community-dwelling older adults with peripheral artery disease (PAD) to reduce falls. To accomplish this, the investigators will conduct a feasibility study and pilot the addition of a balance exercise component to existing supervised exercise therapy (SET) programs for PAD. This intervention may be an effective way to help older adults with PAD self-manage their leg pain and walking impairments as well as fall risk. The long-term goal of this research is to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with falls in older adults with symptomatic PAD through the development and evaluation of a balance intervention component implemented within existing exercise programs. Findings from this research may also be translated to the implementation of disease management programs for other chronic conditions associated with fall risk. The rationale for this research is to determine improve disease-specific, comprehensive and fall prevention strategies for older adults with PAD.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a smart airbag system that detects and mitigates fall-related impact in individuals with high fall risk.
The objectives of this proposal are to evaluate the eSTEPS CDS (eSTEPS) in a cluster randomized controlled trial. The intervention includes the following: 1) A machine learning-based fall injury risk screening algorithm to improve traditional fall risk screening. 2) Provider BPA and/or Care Gap and Smart Set to provide CDS that helps primary care providers develop a tailored fall prevention exercise plan in the context of a Medicare Wellness Visit and 3) eSTEPS Patient App and exercise tools to provide older patients continued access to their interactive, tailored exercise plan.
The long-term goal of this pragmatic, cluster randomized study is to develop a sustainable program for healthcare systems to reduce fatal and nonfatal falls among high-risk older adults living independently in their communities. This study will examine how a medication care plan, grounded in established medication deprescribing and tapering frameworks, can be implemented in primary care clinics to reduce falls among older adults living in rural Iowa communities. The study is a collaboration between researchers and clinical pharmacists at the University of Iowa and a clinical team from the MercyOneSM Health Network, which is a non-academic healthcare system with significant reach into rural Iowa communities The study's specific goals are as followed: * Aim 1: Examine the effectiveness of a clinic-based, individualized medication care plan in reducing rates of all falls including medically treated falls (sub-aim 1a) and motor vehicle charges and crashes (sub-aim 1b) among older adults seen in rural primary care clinics. * Aim 2: Identify provider and patient factors that are associated with patient adherence to medication deprescribing and discontinuation recommendations. * Aim 3\*: Evaluate implementation of the medication care plan to understand its acceptability, usability and relevance among healthcare system administrators, clinics (clinic managers and clinical staff), providers (health coaches, pharmacists, prescribers) and patients. Note\*: Only Aims 1 and 2 (i.e., pertinent to the clinical trial) will be described in this clinicaltrials.gov study description. Intervention and control patients will participate in: * Baseline assessment * Quarterly follow-up assessments * Monthly falls tracking Additionally, Intervention participants will receive: • An individualized medication action plan to deprescribe medications that put them at high risk for a fall Researchers will compare intervention and control participants for changes in self-reported fall rates (primary outcome), EMR-indicated medically-treated falls (secondary outcome), traffic-related charges (secondary outcome), and motor vehicle crashes (secondary outcome).
Purpose: The proposed study will implement and evaluate the effect of an opioid and benzodiazepine (BZD) de-prescribing intervention on falls risk in older adults. Participants: Outpatient clinics with older adult patients, healthcare providers, older adult patients Procedures (methods): In this proposed study, there will be 10 primary care clinics randomly assigned to the intervention arm and 10 primary care clinics randomly assigned to the control arm. In the first phase of this study, patient and provider focus groups will be used to inform the development of the intervention which will be tested during the active trial phase. The intervention has the following components: 1) alerts given to providers to identify patients taking opioids or benzodiazepines (BZD) and therefore at risk for falls; 2) educational materials to inform providers on best practices for de-prescribing opioids and BZDs in patients at risk; and 3) recommendations on de-prescribing provided by a consultant pharmacist. Impact of the intervention will be evaluated using pre-post surveys evaluating changes in providers' knowledge, confidence, and skills as well as information from the electronic health record (EHR) to evaluate impact of the intervention on de-prescribing opioids and BZDs.
Through NINR project 1R44NR017842-01 which preceded the present study, the investigators enhanced the care.coach avatar platform to incorporate a robust suite of evidence-based protocols based on the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP), and to leverage an integration with hospital-based electronic medical record (EMR) systems. In the present study, the investigators seek to validate the efficacy of the new avatar platform, as measured by reduction in falls, delirium, and patient sitter utilization. Also, the investigators seek to gather patient and outcomes data at a scale sufficient to begin developing machine learning algorithms for intelligent, automatic assignment of protocols to maximize patient engagement and clinical efficacy, and for intelligent, automatic screening of delirium to assist care teams in positive identification of delirium. Therefore, the present study comprises a two-year randomized between-groups comparison across multiple hospitals to compare outcomes with the new generation of care.coach avatars as the intervention versus usual care only as the control. Each study group will be geographically distributed across participating research sites: initially MediSys Health Network's Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in New York, with additional hospitals to join the study over the course of two years.
The purpose of the research is to study a new safety monitoring system developed by SafelyYou to help care for a loved one with dementia. The goal is to provide better support for unwitnessed falls. The SafelyYou system is based on AI-enabled cameras which detect fall related events and upload video only when these events are detected. The addition of a Human in the Loop (HIL) will alert the facility staff when an event is detected by the system.
Fall risk increases with age and the fear of falling can significantly impact activity, mobility and future fall risk. Exercise designed specifically to help balance is effective at improving balance and postural control for mobility, gait, and other daily activities. The individual purposes of this research are to (1) effectively use a prototype of an instrumented and actuated harness and support system, (2) demonstrate that this system can be used as designed during induced falls (reactive) and in place gaming (proactive) balance training protocols with the ability to modulate parameters as designed, measurements of harness system are accurate, and resultant output of the system matches intended parameters, and (3) demonstrate that the use of this system can allow provision of and study of varied balance training protocols, including: the measurements of the system, feedback of the system to participants, and the impact of the support parameters of the harness system on the task execution, learning and transfer. Two separate groups of 20 participants (40 total participants) will be studied. The first group will include 20 individuals between the ages of 18 to 40 years old with no history of falls or fear of falling. The first group will complete two sessions of harnessed video gaming balance training. The second group will include older adults over the age of 55 with self-reported falls or the fear of falling. The second group of older adults will complete two sessions of a reactive (slip) training protocol. For both groups, the first session participants will be randomly assigned to use either a standard fall-arrest harness or the new BWS harness system. At the second session, they will switch the harness used. The protocol will involve slips or gaming based balance training, initially of low intensity and then advanced by algorithm based on their response to the trial just prior. This will allow comparison of postural control, perturbation responses, motor learning, and confidence with the system between the two harness types.
In order to provide information that will improve therapy, the goals of this project are to determine if persons with MS with complaints of dizziness and at risk for falls can improve their balance and vision stability as a result of a bout of specific treatment. This project seeks to do this by conducting an experiment where people with MS are randomly assigned to a group that practices activities known to help improve inner ear function or a group that practices activities known to improve endurance and strength but that should not change inner ear function. Such a comparison will allow us to gain understanding of how the inner ear system is affected in MS and how it responds to treatment.
The purpose of this study is to follow a cohort of HIV-infected adults who have alcohol and/or drug use to: 1) test the associations between alcohol (and illicit drugs and polypharmacy (multiple prescribed medications)) and falls (fractures secondarily), and whether frailty mediates these associations; and 2) test the associations between alcohol (and illicit drugs and polypharmacy) and utilization (emergency department use and hospitalization for falls and fractures), and whether frailty mediates them. To achieve the stated aims the investigators will expand (to 400) and continue to follow an existing prospective cohort (The Boston ARCH Cohort) of adults with HIV infection and a high prevalence of exposure to alcohol, other drugs, and polypharmacy. The Boston ARCH Cohort is a longitudinal cohort (1-3.5 years of follow-up) of 250 HIV-infected men and women with current substance dependence or ever injection drug use that have a spectrum of alcohol use.
This study describes a procedure to collect a subject's position, movement, physiological data and usability information using Masimo's investigational device.
With aging, men and women develop a mild and progressive metabolic acidosis. This occurs as a result of declining renal function and ingestion of acid-producing diets. There is extensive evidence that severe metabolic acidosis causes bone and muscle loss, but the impact of the chronic, mild acidosis on bone and muscle in older individuals has not been established. In a recent study, administration of a single dose of bicarbonate daily for 3 months significantly reduced urinary excretion of N-telopeptide (NTX), a marker of bone resorption and urinary nitrogen, a marker of muscle wasting and improved muscle performance in the women but not the men. These and other data support a potential role for bicarbonate as a means of reducing the musculoskeletal declines that lead to extensive morbidity and mortality in the elderly. Before proceeding to a long-term bicarbonate intervention study, however, it is important to identify the dose of bicarbonate most likely to be optimal and to characterize the subjects who benefit most from it. This double blind, placebo controlled, dose-finding study will evaluate the effects of placebo and two doses of bicarbonate on urinary NTX and nitrogen excretion and on lower extremity performance over a 3 month period in 138 men and 138 women, age 60 and older. Changes in urinary excretion of NTX and nitrogen and in selected measures of lower extremity performance will be compared across the three groups. The safety and tolerability of the interventions will also be evaluated. This investigation should provide needed information on the appropriate dosing regimen for men and women and on the study population that should be enrolled in a future bicarbonate intervention trial to assess the long-term effects of this simple, low cost intervention on important clinical outcomes including rates of loss in bone and muscle mass, falls, and fractures.
Falls among older adults are a serious public health concern, and injuries resulting from falls can cause significant loss of independence, premature death, and higher caregiver burden. Home-based fall prevention programs, such as the Otago Exercise Program, educate older adults about the importance of identifying fall risk and provide strategies for reducing fall risk; however, many are costly and are not scalable, accessible, or sustainable. This project will compare a digital fall prevention program used in a group setting in the community with traditional community-based fall prevention programs.
Falls among older adults are a serious public health concern and injuries resulting from falls can cause significant loss of independence, premature death, and higher caregiver burden. Home-based fall prevention programs, such as the Otago Exercise Program, educate older adults about the importance of identifying fall risk and provide strategies for reducing fall risk; however, many are costly and are not scalable, accessible, or sustainable. This project will evaluate the use of a digital solution that translates evidence-based fall prevention programs (such as Otago Exercise Program and Matter of Balance) to a digital solution (Health in Motion Fall Prevention Platform), as an alternative to home-based fall prevention programs that is affordable, scales to the millions of older adults across the country at risk for falls and is sustainable for the older adult's life.
The overall objective of STOP-FALLS is to test whether a patient-centered deprescribing intervention that focuses on CNS-active medications reduces medically treated falls among older adults. The aims are: AIM 1: Adapt and pilot-test an evidence-based medication reduction intervention for use in an integrated health care system. AIM 2: Implement and evaluate the adapted intervention using a cluster-randomized controlled trial design. Aim 3: Assess barriers and facilitators to intervention implementation.
The project aims to promote patient safety and quality care by reducing preventable falls and falls with injuries using an evidence-based solution.
The purpose of this study is to develop and validate methods to use hearing aids equipped with embedded sensors and artificial intelligence to assist in the assessment of fall risk and in the implementation of interventions aimed at reducing the risk of falling, as well as to improve speech intelligibility in quiet and in background noise, track physical activity, and social engagement. The investigators hope is that the knowledge that is generated through this study will ultimately translate to the clinical setting and will help reduce the likelihood that individuals experience a fall, and improve the quality of hearing in individuals who wear hearing aids.
Brief Summary Detailed Description Background: A multitude of risk factors for falling has been reported for the elderly, however many of these risk factors are not applicable to persons with a spinal cord injury, who use a wheelchair for mobility. The objectives of this study are to: (1) describe the incidence and prevalence of tips, falls, and fall-related injuries in SCI; (2) describe the epidemiology of the fall event (person, time, place, and activity); (3) describe any injuries associated with a fall, including the mechanism and nature of the injury, severity of injury, as well as treatment required; (4) determine the risk factors related to falls and fall-related injuries in SCI, and develop a model for predicting falls and fall-related injuries in SCI; (5) determine healthcare utilization as well as direct and indirect costs associated with fall-related injuries in SCI; and (6) describe patient-perceived short- and long-term consequences of falls in SCI. The data collection for this study was completed on March 31, 2007, and data analysis is in final phase. Objectives: The objectives of the study are to describe: (1) the incidence and prevalence of wheelchair tips, falls, and fall-related injuries; (2) epidemiology of event; (3) injuries associated with event, including mechanism, nature, severity of injury and treatment required; (4) determine risk factors and develop a model for predicting tips and falls; (5) determine healthcare utilization and direct and indirect costs; and (6) describe perceived short- and long-term consequences of falls in SCI. Methods: This is a prospective cohort study. Data was collected through patient surveys, medical records, and VA databases. Baseline information includes risk factors (e.g., user characteristics, wheelchair features, wheelchair activities, etc.) and physical environmental data. Monthly follow-up calls tracked tips, falls, and injuries. Status: Recruitment ended on April 1, 2006 with a total of 702 subjects, and data collection was completed on March 31, 2007. The Data Safety Monitoring Board for this study conducted its final meeting on September 17, 2007. Data has been analyzed and 17 manuscripts are currently in development. Impact: While much is known about falls in elderly, there is a lack of understanding of the epidemiology of wheelchair-related falls. Our project is expected to identify previously unaccounted for factors that predispose persons with SCI to falls and fall-related injuries. This study will result in the creation of a model for predicting falls and fall-related injuries in SCI. The predictive model will be used to develop intervention strategies targeting modifiable risk factors. Eventually, we will test this predictive model with other vulnerable veteran populations. Findings from this study wil be used to develop an instrument to identify fall risk in persons with SCI.
The goal of this phase of the project is to identify the elements of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) that should be targeted to provide the most influence on older adults' behavior (or other stakeholders) to purchase and wear protective headwear. The investigators also intend to determine the format of communication (social marketing/academic detailing) that is most influential for different key stakeholder groups. The TPB has been useful in understanding behavior change related to exercise and adaptive equipment use (such as grab bars, canes, hip protectors); in understanding how a person's attitudes, subjective/social norms and perceived behavioral control inform the development of intention that leads to behavior change.