Parkinson's Disease clinical trials at UCSD

The goal of this study is to test KM-819 in halting or slowing the progression of Parkinson's disease. The study evaluates the safety and tolerability of multiple ascending doses of KM-819 in healthy older adults and participants with Parkinson's disease.

This Stage II randomized, controlled, longitudinal trial seeks to assess the acceptability, feasibility, and effects of a driving decision aid use among geriatric patients and providers. This multi-site trial will (1) test the driving decision aid (DDA) in improving decision making and quality (knowledge, decision conflict, values concordance and behavior intent); and (2) determine its effects on specific subpopulations of older drivers (stratified for cognitive function, decisional capacity, and attitudinally readiness for a mobility transition). The overarching hypotheses are that the DDA will help older adults make high-quality decisions, which will mitigate the negative psychosocial impacts of driving reduction, and that optimal DDA use will target certain populations and settings.

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) sometimes experience symptoms affecting their movement, such as slowness, tremor, stiffness, and balance or walking problems. Many patients also have other symptoms not related to movement, called non-motor symptoms, which may affect one's mood or emotions, memory or thinking, or cause one to see or hear things that aren't real (hallucinations) or believe things that aren't true (delusions). Hallucinations or delusions, together called psychosis, occur in up to 60% of PD patients at some point in time. Parkinson's disease psychosis can sometimes be associated with decreased quality of life, increased nursing home placement, increased rate of death, and greater caregiver burden. There are approximately 50,000 Veterans with Parkinson's disease receiving care in the VA, and up to 30,000 (60%) of them will experience psychosis at some point in time. Quetiapine is an antipsychotic drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that is the most commonly used medication to treat PD psychosis, but more studies are needed to determine if it works for this condition and is also well tolerated and safe. Pimavanserin is a newer antipsychotic drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifically to treat PD psychosis, but more studies are needed to determine if it works and its safety. The purpose of this research is to gather additional information on the safety and effectiveness of both Quetiapine and Pimavanserin. By doing this study, the investigators hope to learn which of these medications is the most effective course of treatment for people with PD psychosis.