Dementia clinical trials at UCSF
21 in progress, 11 open to eligible people
In-Home Technology for Caregivers of People With Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment: Rural Homes
open to eligible people ages 18 years and up
This study aims to develop, evaluate, and commercialize an in-home supportive technology that is designed to alleviate anxiety, burden, and loneliness in spousal and familial caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, or mild cognitive impairment in rural homes.
Berkeley, California
In-Home Technology for Caregivers of People With Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment: Spanish Language Homes
open to eligible people ages 18 years and up
This study aims to develop, evaluate, and commercialize an in-home supportive technology that is designed to alleviate anxiety, burden, and loneliness in spousal and familial caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, or mild cognitive impairment in Spanish language homes.
Berkeley, California
In-Home Technology for Caregivers of People With Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment: Wearables
open to eligible people ages 18 years and up
This study aims to develop, evaluate, and commercialize an in-home supportive technology that is designed to alleviate anxiety, burden, and loneliness in spousal and familial caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, or mild cognitive impairment by integrating wearable devices (e.g., Apple Watches).
Berkeley, California
Phase 3 Study to Evaluate Intravenous Trappsol(R) Cyclo(TM) in Pediatric and Adult Patients With Niemann-Pick Disease Type C1
open to eligible people ages 3 years and up
A prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, multi-center therapeutic study for patients age 3 and older with confirmed diagnosis of Niemann Pick disease type C1 (NPC1). The objective of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of 2000 mg/kg dose of Trappsol Cyclo (hydroxypropyl betacyclodextrin) administered intravenously compared to standard of care. An open-label sub-study in countries following European Medicines Agency (EMA) guidance will enroll asymptomatic or symptomatic patients from infancy up to age 3 to evaluate safety in that population.
Oakland, California and other locations
The Care Ecosystem Consortium Effectiveness Study
open to eligible people ages 18 years and up
The Care Ecosystem is an accessible, remotely delivered team-based dementia care model, designed to add value for patients, providers and payers in complex organizational and reimbursement structures. Care is delivered via the phone and web by unlicensed Care Team Navigators, who are trained and supervised by a team of dementia specialists with nursing, social work, and pharmacy expertise. The evidence base to date suggests that the Care Ecosystem improves outcomes important to people with dementia, caregivers, and payers when delivered in a controlled research environment, including reduced emergency department visits, higher quality of life for patients, lower caregiver depression, and reduced potentially inappropriate medication use (Possin et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2022). The investigators propose a rapid pragmatic trial in 6 health systems currently offering the Care Ecosystem program in geographically and culturally diverse populations. The investigators will leverage technology, delivering care via the phone and web and using electronic health records to monitor quality improvements and evaluate outcomes while maximizing external validity. The investigators will evaluate the effectiveness of the Care Ecosystem on outcomes important to patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, and health systems during the pandemic. By evaluating the real-world effectiveness in diverse health systems that are already providing this model of care, this project will bridge the science-practice gap in dementia care during an unprecedented time of heightened strain on family caregivers, healthcare providers and health systems.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Treatment for Speech and Language in Primary Progressive Aphasia
open to all eligible people
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a progressive neurological disorder that causes a gradual decline in communication ability as a result of selective neurodegeneration of speech and language networks in the brain. PPA is a devastating condition affecting adults as young as their 40's or 50's, depriving them of the ability to communicate and function in society. There has been significant progress in discovering the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie PPA and in identifying its clinical phenotypes. With these advances, we are poised to investigate behavioral treatments that are grounded in modern cognitive and neuroanatomical concepts. Research documenting the efficacy of speech-language treatment for PPA is emerging, but limited. Systematic research is needed to establish best clinical practices in this unique patient population for whom pharmacological treatment remains elusive. The long-term objectives of this project are to provide evidence-based treatment methods addressing the speech and language deficits in PPA and to determine the neural predictors of responsiveness to intervention. The study has three main goals that build on the findings of our previous work: 1) to examine the utility of treatments designed to facilitate significant, generalized and lasting improvement of speech-language function in PPA, 2) to determine whether treatment alters the trajectory of decline in PPA by comparing performance on primary outcome measures in treated versus untreated participants after a one-year interval, and 3) to identify imaging predictors (gray matter, white matter, and functional connectivity measures) of responsiveness to behavioral intervention in individuals with PPA. In order to accomplish these aims, we will enroll 60 individuals with PPA, who will undergo a comprehensive multidisciplinary evaluation and neuroimaging. Subsequently, participants will be enrolled in treatment designed to promote lasting and generalized improvement of communicative function in core speech-language domains. Participants will be followed for up to one-year post-treatment in order to determine long-term effects of rehabilitation, and their performance will be compared with a historical cohort of untreated PPA patients. This ambitious study and the necessary recruitment will be possible due to an ongoing collaboration with the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, a leading institution in the field of PPA research. The study will broaden the evidence base supporting the efficacy of speech-language intervention in PPA and will provide novel evidence regarding neural predictors of treatment outcomes, with the potential to inform clinical decision-making and improve clinical care for individuals with this debilitating disorder.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Trial of Parkinson's And Zoledronic Acid
open to eligible people ages 60 years and up
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.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Veri-T: A Trial of Verdiperstat in Patients With svPPA Due to TDP-43 Pathology
open to eligible people ages 18-85
The purpose of the study is to test the safety and tolerability of twice daily Verdiperstat in patients with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) due to frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TDP-43 pathology (FTLD-TDP). Three-fourths of the participants will receive Verdiperstat and one-fourth will receive Placebo during the 24-week treatment duration.
San Francisco, California
ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (ALLFTD)
open to eligible people ages 18 years and up
ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (ALLFTD) represents the formalized integration of ARTFL (U54 NS092089; funded through 2019) and LEFFTDS (U01 AG045390; funded through 2019) as a single North American research consortium to study FTLD for 2019 and beyond.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy With Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) Study
open to eligible people ages 18 years and up
This is an observational study to understand better the risk factors and progression of a leading cause of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID). 500 participants will be enrolled and can expect to be on study for up to 5 years.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Neurofilament Surveillance Project (NSP)
open to eligible people ages 18-85
This is a biomarker study designed to collect and analyze blood specimens from individuals carrying known familial frontotemporal lobar degeneration (f-FTLD) mutations compared to a control group of individuals without known f-FTLD mutations. The NSP is an ancillary study to the ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration" (ALLFTD) study, NCT04363684. More information can be found at https://www.allftd.org/.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Early Access Program With Arimoclomol in US Patients With NPC
Sorry, not accepting new patients
NPC is a rare, relentlessly progressive, neurological disease and associated with serious morbidity and shortened life expectancy. The purpose of this Expanded Access Program is to provide early access to arimoclomol for patients with Niemann-Pick Type C disease who, in the opinion and the clinical judgement of the treating physician, may benefit from treatment with arimoclomol. Participants will receive treatment with arimoclomol until their doctor finds it does not help them anymore, they withdraw, or the study is stopped for any reason.
Oakland, California and other locations
A Phase 2 Study to Evaluate Safety of Long-term AL001 Dosing in Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) Patients (INFRONT-2)
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
A Phase 2 open label study evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of AL001 in participants with a Granulin mutation or C9orf72 mutation causative of frontotemporal dementia.
San Francisco, California and other locations
A Phase 2a Study of TPN-101 in Patients With C9ORF72 ALS/FTD
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
This is a Phase 2a study to assess the the safety and tolerability of TPN-101 in patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and/or Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) Associated with Hexanucleotide Repeat Expansion in the C9orf72 gene (C9ORF72 ALS/FTD).
San Francisco, California and other locations
Care Ecosystem: Navigating Patients and Families Through Stages of Care, Extension Trial
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
This is an extension trial of a prior trial (NCT02213458). Both persons with dementia (PWD) and their caregivers were enrolled as dyads. The purpose of this randomized clinical trial is to evaluate the benefits of a program that supports model care for PWD and their caregivers. Whereas the prior trial only delivered care and examined outcomes up to 12-months, this trial extends care and outcome measurement for 5 years or until death, and includes all dyads where the caregiver reported high caregiver burden (Zarit-12 greater than or equal to 17) at pre-randomization baseline for the original trial. Participants were recruited from California, Nebraska and Iowa. Participants determined to be eligible were consented and randomized into one of two groups. Two thirds of dyads were enrolled into Navigated Care that provided them with phone-based assistance in meeting important benchmarks in their care, for example completion of legal and financial planning and strategies for minimizing caregiver burden. One third of dyads were enrolled to a control group, entitled Survey of Care. Outcomes were unchanged from the original trial except for the addition of time to long term care placement and are detailed below.
Intranasal Oxytocin for Frontotemporal Dementia
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
The purpose of this study is to assess the safety, tolerability and effects on behaviour of Syntocinon given intranasally (by a spray into the nostrils) compared to placebo (an inactive saline substance that contains no medication) in participants with frontotemporal dementia/Pick's disease. This study will take place in approximately 15 centres across Canada and the United States. Approximately 112 patients in total will be enrolled in this study. In the first phase we will examine which of three different dosing schedules of oxytocin may be more effective. In the second phase of the study, patients entering the study will be randomized to the oxytocin dosing schedule that appeared most effective in the first phase.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Moving Together: An Online Group Movement Program for People Living With Memory Loss and Caregivers
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
To determine whether Moving Together improves quality of life in people with memory loss (PWML) and caregivers (CG) by performing a randomized, controlled trial (RCT) with a waitlist control group in 224 dyads.
San Francisco, California
REVERSE-Long COVID-19 With Baricitinib Pilot Study
Sorry, not yet accepting patients
This is a pilot study for REVERSE-LC, a phase 3 trial of baricitinib versus placebo in adults with neurocognitive impairment (a form of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias or ADRD) or cardiopulmonary symptoms due to Long COVID.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Rural Dementia Caregiver Project
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
These caregivers are a vulnerable group due to their physical isolation and well-documented rural disparities in health care access and quality. Many rural dementia caregivers experience serious health consequences due to caregiving responsibilities that can limit their ability to maintain their caregiving role. Thus, there is a pressing need for effective, scalable, and accessible programs to support rural dementia caregivers. Online programs offer a convenient and readily translatable option for program delivery because they can be accessed by caregivers in the home and at the convenience of the user. Building Better Caregivers is an online 6-week, interactive, small-group self-management, social support, and skills-building workshop developed for caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease or related dementia. The investigators will conduct a hybrid effectiveness-implementation randomized controlled trial that will enroll and randomize 640 rural dementia caregivers into two groups: the intervention (workshop) group and the attention control group. Caregivers will be recruited throughout the United States. Primary outcomes will be caregiver stress and depression symptoms. The investigators hypothesize that stress scores and depression symptoms will be significantly improved at 12 months in the intervention group versus control group. The investigators will also identify key strengths (facilitators) and weaknesses (barriers) of workshop implementation. The investigators will use the RE-AIM implementation framework and a mixed methods approach to identify implementation characteristics pertinent to both caregivers and rural community organizations. If the Building Better Caregivers workshop is proven to be effective, this research has the potential to open new research horizons, particularly on how to reach and effectively support isolated dementia caregivers in rural areas with an intervention that is scalable, even in low-resourced settings. If the workshop can achieve its goals with rural dementia caregivers, some of those most isolated, it would also be expected to be scalable in other low-resourced settings (e.g., in urban or suburban environments).
San Francisco, California
The Active Mind Trial: An Adaptive Randomized Trial to Improve Function and Delay Dementia
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
Older adults at risk for dementia show a variety of cognitive deficits, which can be ameliorated by different cognitive training (CT) exercises. The best combination of CT exercises is unknown. The aim is to discover the most efficacious combination of CT exercises as compared to cognitive stimulation (which will serve as a stringent, active control) to modify the functional trajectories of older adults' with MCI, who are at high risk for dementia. The primary objective of the U01 phase is to design and pilot-test an adaptive, randomized clinical trial (RCT) of cognitive training (CT) combinations aimed to enhance performance of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) among persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The longitudinal endpoint goal is reducing incident dementia. The primary aim of the study is to determine which CT combination has the best probability to delay dementia by producing the largest IADL improvements. The study further aims to explore neuroimaging and novel blood-based biomarkers.
San Francisco, California and other locations
The Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study (KEEPS)
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
To assess effects of menopausal hormone therapy and normal aging on cognitive performance and imaging markers of brain structure in women approximately thirteen years after enrolling in the KEEPS trial. KEEPS participants were randomized to oral or transdermal estrogen treatments or placebo within three years of menopause. This is a follow up study of these women approximately thirteen years after randomization (9 years after study completion.) No treatments are given as part of this study; any current hormonal treatments are by choice and prescribed by the participant's personal physician.
San Francisco, California and other locations
Our lead scientists for Dementia research studies include Peter Ljubenkov Howie Rosen, MD Marcelle Cedars Veronica Yank, MD Deborah Barnes, PhD, MPH Caroline Tanner, MD Katherine L Possin, PhD Caroline Hastings, MD Adam Boxer, MD, PhD.
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