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Atrial fibrillation (AF) often starts with short episodes of rapid irregular heartbeats that are only detected by implanted pacemakers or defibrillators. Usually people don't know that they have these episodes. Over time, these episodes can happen more often and last for longer periods. In some people, the heart eventually remains permanently in a fast irregular rhythm, known as atrial fibrillation. This condition can lead to strokes and blood clots. If physicians could detect atrial fibrillation at a very early stage they could treat people early and possibly prevent the condition from becoming permanent. People with implanted devices allow a unique opportunity to constantly monitor the heart rhythm so investigators can detect any irregularities immediately. Investigators don't know which people are at risk of developing short episodes of fast irregular heartbeats that can lead to atrial fibrillation. The purpose of this study is to find out if there are proteins or chemical changes in the blood that can predict the risk of developing atrial fibrillation. These chemical changes, also known as biomarkers, may also be able to give investigators other clues about atrial fibrillation.

Conditions:
Atrial Fibrillation
Location:
  • University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
Over 18

The goal of this observational study is to collect health data on people who are at high risk of having heart complications and are having a surgery that is not on the heart. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Is this study feasible in terms of recruiting enough people to participate in this study? * How often do heart complications happen in people who are at high risk of heart complications and are having a surgery that is not on the heart? Participants will have their usual care and will also be asked to: * Have extra bloodwork done * Complete some surveys * Have two echocardiograms (ultrasounds of the heart) * Continue to follow-up with the research team for one year after their surgery Researchers will compare how often heart complications occur in this high risk population to a future study where participants will receive stem cells before their surgery.

Conditions:
Myocardial Infarction | Myocardial Ischemia | Myocardial Injury | Cardiac Complication
Location:
  • The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
Over 45

Children are highly sensitive to adversity during their first five years of life, with exposure to chronic parental mental illness (MI) consistently linked to socio-emotional impairments and mental health problems in children. Children born during the COVID-19 pandemic were exposed to unprecedented level of parental distress, with parental MI reported at three times the pre-pandemic rates. This situation underscored a pressing need for scalable solutions to foster positive mental health and developmental outcomes for a generation of children. In response, the investigators developed the Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM) program, an innovative mobile health (mHealth) solution for parents of young children. Clinical trials to date evaluating BEAM have shown promising results, demonstrating reductions in parent depression, anxiety, and harsh parenting practices. This trial involves an effectiveness-implementation hybrid design with co-primary aims of (1) determining BEAM's effectiveness in improving child mental health and developmental outcomes, and (2) evaluating the implementation of BEAM in the community through metrics such as feasibility, acceptability, and uptake. The secondary aim of this trial is to measure BEAM's effectiveness in improving long-term biopsychosocial family outcomes using administrative data. A final exploratory aim of this trial will measure the cost-utility of delivering BEAM relative to extant health programming. This trial will evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the BEAM intervention in the community with a sample of 400 parent participants with a child aged 24-71 months. Study participants will complete 12 weeks of psychoeducation modules in the BEAM app, with access to an online social support forum and check ins with a peer coach. Assessments of parent and child symptoms will occur at pre-test before BEAM begins (T1), immediately after the last week of the BEAM intervention (post-test, T2), 6-month follow-up (T3), and 12-month follow-up (T4). The BEAM program offers a promising solution to addressing elevated parental mental health symptoms, parenting stress, and related child functioning concerns. The present implementation trial aims to extend the groundwork established by an open pilot trial and RCT of the BEAM program, in a next step of testing BEAM's readiness for nationwide scaling.

Conditions:
Stress, Psychological | Anger | Child Development | Parenting | Parent-Child Relations | Depression, Anxiety
Location:
  • University of Manitoba - Department of Psychology & Pediatrics, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
Over 18

Prospective, single center study designed to assess blood biomarkers for classifying injury severity and predict neurologic recovery in traumatic spinal cord injured (SCI) patients. Study will also establish the accuracy of point to care devices for SCI blood biomarkers and support the biospecimen collection for the International Spinal Cord Injury Biobank (ISCIB).

Conditions:
Spinal Cord Injuries | Trauma, Spinal Cord | Acute Spinal Cord Injury | Acute Spinal Paralysis
Location:
  • Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
Over 19

CAN-RWE is an observational study that is following 500 children who have authorizations for medical cannabis for two years from across Canada.

Conditions:
Cancer | Epilepsy | Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Location:
  • U Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
3 - 17

Functional neurosurgery is dedicated to modulating aberrant neural circuits associated with a wide range of neurological conditions. Recently, technological advances in MRI have permitted marked improvements in the direct visualization of neural targets, which is necessary for the accurate targeting in functional neurosurgery procedures. This research study focuses on imaging patient brains before their scheduled procedures by using a 3 tesla (T) MRI to provide higher resolution and quality brain images. The reason for this study is to assess the image quality using different MRI sequences or settings to improve the image resolution of the most common functional neurosurgery targets (e.g., subthalamic nucleus, globus pallidus, and thalamus) and compare the image quality of the brains in patients with healthy controls. Performing a preoperative MRI is standard-of-care for patients indicated for deep brain stimulation (DBS), gamma knife radiosurgery (GKRS), radiofrequency ablation (RFA), magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS). MRI sequence parameters shown to improve the image quality of different neural structures in a recent literature review (Boutet et al. 2021) will be reproduced on the 3T MRI at Toronto Western Hospital.

Conditions:
Neuro-Degenerative Disease
Location:
  • Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
18 - 85

Oxidative stress (OS) is characterized by an imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the ability of the body to eliminate them. Such an imbalance can lead to lipid peroxidation, DNA damage and cell apoptosis. Studies have suggested that infertile men are more likely to have high concentrations of ROS in their seminal plasma. The investigators hypothesize that a high level of oxidative stress (OS) in patients with abnormal sperm parameters could influence fertilization and / or pregnancy success. Our first goal is to compare OS levels to semen parameters, as defined by the World Health Organization in 2010, as well as DNA fragmentation and chromatin decondensation in sperm. Our second objective is to compare OS levels in sperm to fertilization and blastulation rates at first, and then measure the impact of OS levels on pregnancy success, both in intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF). Sperm samples from men in 3 groups will be analyzed: a group of fertile men with confirmed paternity (n = 50), a group of men in IVF (n = 100) and a group of men in their first three cycles of IUI (n = 100). The static oxidation reduction index (sORP) will be measured by the MiOXSYS © system, a rapid sperm analysis system using electrochemical technology. A small portion of the fresh sperm sample will be deposited on a MiOXSYS sensor and the ORP will be measured. Sperm ROS will also be measured using the CellROX Deep Red probe. The sperm parameters will be measured by the techniques used routinely in the Fertilys Reproductive Health Center andrology lab. Regarding couples in IVF, fertilization and blastulation rates, embryo quality and pregnancy success will be noted. Pregnancy success will be noted for IUI couples. If the usefulness of sORP levels in predicting pregnancy and its outcome is demonstrated, it could be a new marker in the diagnosis of male infertility and act as a guide for clinicians to apply appropriate treatment.

Conditions:
Oxidative Stress
Location:
  • Fertilys, Laval, Quebec, Canada
Sex:
MALE
Ages:
18 - 40

The ZetaFuse™ Bone Graft is indicated for patients with destructive, lytic lesions due to metastatic breast cancer to bone, with or without involvement of other sites, with at least one metastatic lesion located in a vertebral body of the spine, and a Spinal Instability Neoplastic Score (SINS) ≥3 and ≤9. The ZetaFuse™ Bone Graft is percutaneously implanted into the bone defect created by the metastatic tumor in a spinal vertebral body. The ZetaFuse™ Bone Graft is only for implantation into the vertebral body.

Conditions:
Metastatic Breast Cancer in the Spine
Location:
  • McGill University Health Center, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
  • Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Sex:
FEMALE
Ages:
22 - 75

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is often accompanied by non-motor symptoms that make treatment more difficult. One such symptom is apathy (lack of motivation and emotion). There are no treatments for apathy in PD, and this remains a major unmet need in PD patients. One possible way to target apathy in PD patients is listening to music, which has been shown to help improve apathy in older adults. Little work has explored the mechanism in which music targets apathy. Thus, the goal of this study is to understand how music listening can impact the brain towards decreasing apathy in PD patients.

Conditions:
Parkinson Disease | Apathy
Location:
  • Djavad Mowafghian Centre for Brain Health, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
40 - 85

Traditional training of surgical technical skills relies on mentorship from experienced surgeons, who continuously evaluate and change trainee performance to prevent errors and potential patient harm by providing verbal instructions. These educators may also pause the procedure, explaining the risks associated with the trainee's actions, and may personally demonstrate proper techniques to the students. Studies examining pausing while providing medical care outline that these approaches allow for learning. An artificial intelligent (AI) tutoring system, the Intelligent Continuous Expertise Monitoring System (ICEMS), improves learning in a surgical simulated operation by providing trainees with verbal instructions upon error identification. However, the effect of including a pause during this AI teaching has not been studied. Therefore, the ICEMS post-error identification methodology has been altered to include a pause with the intelligent tutor voice instruction. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of pausing on surgical skill acquisition and transfer among pre-medical and medical students. This will be done by comparing their performance in repeated simulated tumour resection tasks.

Conditions:
Surgical Education
Location:
  • Neurosurgical Simulation and Artificial Intelligence Learning Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Sex:
ALL
Ages:
Over 18