Batten's Disease

Background: In the U.S., about 53 million informal, unpaid caregivers provide care to a person who is ill, is disabled, or has age-related loss of function. These caregivers may be adult children, spouses, parents, or others. The stress of providing long-term care affects caregivers health and well-being. Researchers want to learn more about this stress and its effects. Objective: To learn how the caregiving process affects the health and well-being of caregivers over time. Eligibility: Adults aged 18 years and older who are caregivers for a person with a chronic medical condition and who have already given consent to take part in other study activities. Design: Participants will be put in different groups. They will complete some or all of the following tasks over 1 year. They may repeat these tasks once a year for up to 5 years. Participants will fill out 2 online surveys. One will ask about their health and their caregiving experience. The other will ask them to list people in their social network and their care recipient s social network who give them support. Participants will have a 2-part phone interview. It will be audio recorded. In part 1, they will be asked about the people they listed in the survey. In part 2, they will be asked about their caregiving experience and events in the care recipient s life. Participants may fill out a weeklong diary every 3 months. It will ask about their daily social activities, well-being, and stress levels. It will also ask about their thoughts and feelings about caregiving. Participants may give a blood sample each year they are in the study. ...

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a gene therapy called scAAV9.CB.CLN6 can treat children with CLN6 Batten disease (variant late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis). The main questions it aims to answer are if he gene therapy safe and well tolerated, and if the gene therapy help slow disease progression or improve symptoms. Participants will: Receive a single dose of the gene therapy through an injection into the fluid around the spinal cord (intrathecal administration) Have regular study visits over 2 years for safety checks and assessments of disease progression Be followed for an additional 3 years in a long-term follow-up study