14 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Individuals living in Upper Manhattan have limited access to eye care, high vision impairment rates, and poor ocular health outcomes. To improve eye care and vision health outcomes, the Eye Health Intervention Study in Upper Manhattan (EYES-UM) will conduct eye health screenings in accessible primary care health centers and senior centers and implement a behavioral intervention to improve adherence for those referred for in-office eye care. The proposed innovative, 2:1 cluster-randomized clinical trial, will recruit adults age 40 and older in Upper Manhattan with known rates of inadequate eye care. A total of 10 settings in Upper Manhattan, comprised of primary care offices, senior centers, and organizations, confirms access to 17,000 individuals living at or below the NYC.gov poverty measure. This study will conduct ocular tests (visual acuity, intraocular pressure, fundus images) during screenings. To ensure that all participants receive the basic level of service, all participants who fail the eye health screening will be seen the same day by a study optometrist and eyeglasses will be provided at no charge. Educational workshops and an Advisory Board will support recruitment. Intervention Arm participants will receive ongoing support with scheduling eye exams and transportation by trained Study Coordinators. All participants will be followed prospectively for 2 years. The study is guided by the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) Framework. Conducting Focus Groups with health policy stakeholders ensures iterative input during the study to bridge and translate EYES-UM findings into a Vision Health Policy Roadmap for scalable implementation of vision care delivery models, focusing on adherence.
Dr. Lisa A. Hark (PI and Study Chair) and an interdisciplinary team have designed the New York City Eye Study (NYCES) to promote eye and vision health by conducting eye health screenings in adults age 21+ (PAR-23-009/NOT-EY-22-004).
The investigators are conducting a 5-year prospective, 2:1 cluster-randomized controlled trial, funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which provides vision screenings to underserved New York City residents living in affordable housing buildings in Harlem and Washington Heights.
One of the most challenging tasks for blind and visually impaired individuals is navigation through a complex environment. The goal of the present multidisciplinary study is to increase spatial-cognition abilities in people who are blind or visually impaired through training with the previously-developed Cognitive-Kinesthetic Rehabilitation Training to improve navigation, and to investigate the resultant neuroplastic brain reorganization through multimodal brain imaging. In accordance with National Eye Institute (NEI) strategic goals, this multidisciplinary project will promote the development of well-informed new approaches to navigational rehabilitation, memory enhancement and cross-modal brain plasticity to benefit 'cutting edge' fields of mobile assistive technologies, vision restoration and memory facilitation for the aging brain.
This project aims to develop a novel visual training paradigm for use in visually-intact participants and those sufferings from stroke-induced visual impairments. Our task design is built upon theories of statistical learning to reduce the overall training burden while still producing profound improvements to visual abilities. Efficacy will be first established in visually-intact controls before testing in stroke survivors to assess the feasibility of this form of learning in the damaged visual system.
The purpose of this study was to find out whether a method of nonvisual foot inspection, using the senses of touch and smell, helps people with diabetes and visual impairment to find new foot problems when they are in early, easily-treated stages. All people in the study had regular foot inspections by podiatrists. The results include how people feel about the method, whether they actually did check their feet it, and whether the method helped them to discover foot problems themselves.
The purpose of the project is to find out what kinds of information are most useful to visually impaired people when they are moving around indoors and what kinds of controls will make it easy for visually impaired people to control a device to help orient them to an unfamiliar indoor space.
This is a two-year proof-of-concept study to evaluate a new Virtual Reality (VR) "holographic" sound system for use as an audiological Orientation and Mobility (O\&M) training tool
The purpose of the research project is to develop and evaluate an emergency egress system for persons with visual impairment, which would use existing lighted exit signage to provide egress information at a distance of up to 100 feet.
This research is aimed to address one of the big gaps in the current vision rehabilitation protocols for people with profound visual impairment by evaluating a multisensory approach. There are a growing number of clinical trials that recruit people with end-stage eye diseases and the rehabilitation plan following various treatments is not clear. It is important to address this in order to maximize the efficacy of such treatments and to improve the quality of life in people with profound visual impairment.
This project is intended to collect data using standard clinical tests and psychophysics to quantify the effect of visual cortical damage on the structure of the residual visual system, visual perception, spatial awareness, and brain function. The investigators will also assess the effect of intensive visual retraining on the residual visual system, processing of visual information and the use of such information in real-world situations following damage. This research is intended to improve our understanding of the consequences of permanent visual system damage in humans, of methods that can be used to reverse visual loss, and of brain mechanisms by which visual recovery is achieved.
This is a randomized, pilot interventional study in participants with visual field deficit (VFD) caused by cortical lesion. Damage to the primary visual cortex (V1) causes a contra-lesional, homonymous loss of conscious vision termed hemianopsia, the loss of one half of the visual field. The goal of this project is to elaborate and refine a rehabilitation protocol for VFD participants. It is hypothesized that visual restoration training using moving stimuli coupled with noninvasive current stimulation on the visual cortex will promote and speed up recovery of visual abilities within the blind field in VFD participants. Moreover, it is expected that visual recovery positively correlates with reduction of the blind field, as measured with traditional visual perimetry: the Humphrey visual field test or an eye-tracker based visual perimetry implemented in a virtual reality (VR) headset. Finally, although results will vary among participants depending on the extent and severity of the cortical lesion, it is expected that a bigger increase in neural response to moving stimuli in the blind visual field in cortical motion area, for those participants who will show the largest behavioral improvement after training. The overarching goals for the study are as follows: Group 1a will test the basic effects of transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) coupled with visual training in stroke cohorts, including (i) both chronic/subacute ischemic and chronic hemorrhagic VFD stroke participants, and (ii) longitudinal testing up to 6 months post-treatment. Group 1b will test the effects of transcranial tRNS coupled with visual training on a Virtual Reality (VR) device in stroke cohorts, including both chronic/subacute ischemic and chronic hemorrhagic VFD stroke participants. Group 2 will examine the effects of tRNS alone, without visual training, also including chronic and subacute VFD stroke participants and longitudinal testing.
This study will evaluate the use of autologous bone marrow derived stem cells (BMSC) for the treatment of retinal and optic nerve damage or disease.
The project has four primary objectives: 1) Determine if blind rehabilitation improves the quality of life of legally blind veterans; 2) Determine the relationship between quality of life and visual function; 3) Determine if factors, such as cognitive status, level of depression, age and the presence of additional medical conditions besides vision loss, intervention of blind rehabilitation extends beyond the visually impaired individual and improve the quality of life of their primary caregiver (e.g. spouse, partner, family member or friend.)