Effect of Theta-Burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TBS) for Early Alzheimer's Disease
Condition: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Alzheimer Disease
MeSH terms: Alzheimer Disease
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      To investigate the treatment effect of theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation on
      Alzheimer patients, and the underlying neural mechanism by MRI.
    

Detailed description: 
      All patients underwent a medical evaluation that included physical examination and routine
      laboratory studies before and after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
      treatment. Upon meeting the inclusion criteria and providing informed consent, each
      participant will complete a series of cognitive assessments and rTMS treatments at the First
      Affiliated Hospital of AnHui medical university. Patients were randomly allocated to rTMS
      group and the sham group. There are about 20 patients in each group. For the all patients,
      allocation was by coin toss. Patients were studied using a double-blind design. Study
      participants, clinical raters, and all personnel responsible for the clinical care of the
      patient remained masked to allocated condition and allocation parameters. Only rTMS
      administrators had access to the randomization list; they had minimal contact with the
      patients, and no role in cognitive and synptom assessments. Each patient would be treated for
      continuous 15 days by rTMS.

      Before the rTMS treatment, a series of cognitive assessments and neuropsychological tests
      were obtained by a trained investigator to assess baseline. Each assessment will involve a
      set of assessment tools, the associative memory as the primary outcome measure and various
      other tasks and questionnaires to measure cognition(including MoCA,MMSE, DS, Stroop test,
      TMT, BNT-30, VFT, CDT,JLOT.Form H,HVOT), memory (CAVLT, LMT),
      emotion(HAMA-17,HAMD-14,GDS-30), behavioral and psychological symptoms(NPI), and treatment
      tolerability. All the tests are conducted in two days. The patients had receiving a magnetic
      resonance imaging scan in multi-modalities.

      After the last treatment, the MoCA, and associative memory were obtained, as well as the
      Global Index of Safety to assess adverse events of the treatment. Patients were instructed to
      focus their answers on the past 15 days. The patients had also receiving a battery measure of
      neuropsychological tests, magnetic resonance imaging scan in multi-modalities. Two month
      after the last treatment, participants were interviewed to obtain the same assessment as
      before. They were instructed to focus their answers on the past months.
    

Intervention name(s): transcranial magnetic stimulation
Intervention type(s): Other
Intervention description(s): Intermittent Theta-Burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Triple (Participant, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Alzheimer Disease