Clinical trials

This study aims to investigate the effects of a combined thoracic expansion exercise (TEE) and slow diaphragmatic breathing (SDB) program on cognitive function, brain activation, psychological status, and head-shoulder posture in healthy young adults.

This randomized controlled trial aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a serious game in improving targeted temperature management (TTM) knowledge and situational awareness among critical care nurses. A total of 120 nurses from adult intensive care units will be randomly assigned to either a control group receiving traditional lecture-based teaching or an experimental group receiving lecture-based teaching combined with a digital serious game. Outcomes will be measured using a TTM knowledge test, a situational awareness scale, and a system usability scale. The findings will provide evidence for the use of serious games as an innovative educational strategy to enhance post-resuscitation care quality and patient safety.

Primary Outcomes The primary objective of this trial is to test the safety of formulations containing dendritic cells (DCs) and natural killer (NK) cells cultured in vitro. By evaluating the reactions following the administration of autologous dendritic cells via axillary lymph node injection and natural killer cells via intravenous injection, the study aims to determine the safety profile of these trial products for human use. Secondary Outcomes To verify the success rate of the cultured cell formulations and assess the cytotoxic capacity of natural killer cells in targeting and killing tumor cells. The evaluation of these secondary objectives involves analyzing specific subcategories, which can be divided into two major components: 1. Validation of Cultured Cell Preparation Success: Assessing the proliferation rate, recovery rate, survival rate, and tumor-killing capacity of the cultured autologous dendritic cells and natural killer cells. 2. Validation of Antitumor Effectiveness: Evaluating the antitumor efficacy of the trial products administered via axillary lymph node injection of autologous dendritic cells and intravenous infusion of autologous natural killer cells.

"AIDS" was once regarded as the Black Death of the 20th century. However, with the advent of cocktail therapy, the survival rate of infected people has been greatly improved and the average life expectancy has been increased. Today, AIDS is considered a chronic disease, just like hypertension and diabetes. As long as you have regular checkups and take medication on time every day, you can complete the treatment, just like a normal person. However, there is still a risk of missing medication when taking it every day, and long-term missed medications can easily lead to drug resistance and increase the risk of treatment failure. After the HIV-infected person has stabilized the viral load, their mobility, self-care and daily activities are no different from those of normal people. However, they experience side effects such as fatigue, lack of energy, difficulty sleeping, depression, changes in appearance, tension and anxiety, dizziness, headache, vomiting, etc., which affect their quality of life. The long-acting AIDS injection is a long-acting dosage form for intramuscular injection. It has been included in the national health insurance reimbursement standards. Treatment with long-acting injections can reduce the risk of infected people forgetting to take medicine, and there is no need to worry about the exposure of the disease when storing the medicine. Through this study, we hope to collect the results of long-acting injections for stable HIV treatment cases (health status, daily activities, injection site, satisfaction), and confirm that long-acting injections can significantly improve the quality of daily life of HIV-infected people.

Falls are a significant issue for patients with knee osteoarthritis, as they can lead to hospitalization or even more severe consequences. Therefore, it is crucial to assess fall risk early in rehabilitation clinics. Sarcopenia, which is the reduction of muscle mass, increases the risk of falls. This study involved 250 adults with knee osteoarthritis, using a technology called POCUS to assess muscle mass, combined with other tests to track fall incidents over three months. The study is expected to find correlations between falls and factors like muscle mass and grip strength. This information can help doctors better predict which patients are at risk of falling and take preventive measures early. Future research will explore the effectiveness of different prevention strategies.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is among the most common reasons for emergency department (ED) visits. A clear understanding of the likely pathogens is essential for the rapid institution of adequate antimicrobial therapy. Due to the indistinguishable clinical symptoms between viral and bacterial pathogens, patients with viral respiratory infection are usually under-evaluated while unnecessary antibacterial agents are more likely to be administered. With the development of highly sensitive end-to-end point-of-care (POC) multiplex PCR system, rapid diagnosis of respiratory pathogens for CAP in the ED becomes possible. Our previous NTUH-VGH cooperative research project demonstrated POC respiratory viral testing' in conjunction with procalcitonin test can reduce the length of hospital stay and antibiotic consumption. However, viral testing alone cannot guide precision antimicrobial treatment. A complete pneumonia pathogen testing panel should include bacteria, virus, atypical pathogens, and resistant genes. In addition, such test need to be completed within about time at a reasonable cost. The difficult missing has been recently achieved. The BIOFIRE®FILMARRAY® Pneumonia Panel is the only FDA approved mPCR test that can test 18 bacteria (11 Gram negative, 4 Gram positive and 3 atypical), 7 antibiotic resistance markers, and 9 viruses in one test within 45 minutes. Currently, the world is eagerly to learn how this new diagnostic technology can transform the clinical management of pneumonia. With this in mind, the aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of POC pneumonia pathognome wide testing on the antimicrobial use and outcome of patients. We will perform an open label pragmatic parallel comparison between patients with/without the test. The results will inform the pneumonia guideline. Subsequent health economic analysis based on this study will be important to the reimbursement policy of the health insurance of Taiwan.