The Clinical Trials Core is a Network scientific core dedicated to fostering research of acquired cognitive disorders, with particular emphasis on initial-stage, controlled efficacy studies. It will serve the needs of investigators who have the interest and skills and advance cognitive rehabilitation research, but who would otherwise lack the resources, especially access to subjects and trained classical staff. The Clinical Trials Core will be administratively based at the applicant institution, MossRehab/MRRI, and will involve subcontractual arrangements with Bryn MawR Rehab and Magee Rehab. Dr. Myrna Schwartz, associate director of MRRI and research director for the Moss Aphasia Center, will direct the clinical trials core. MossRehab, Magee Rehab, and Ryn Mawr Rehab, are the three largest and most prestigious rehabilitation service systems in Southeastern Pennsylvania Together they admit approximately 1725 individuals with stroke and traumatic brain injury to their inpatient services annually, and serve an even larger number on an outpatient basis. Having collectively joined the Jefferson Health System in 1998, the three facilities have embarked on increasing numbers of collective ventures. Here, they will collaborate to create a unified patient database and centralized subject recruitment system. To maximize recruitment while conserving costs, a central Research Clinic will be developed that draws subjects from the three hospitals. The Research Clinic will be staffed by clinicians specifically trained to conduct rehabilitation research protocols, working side by side with full time researchers. The intellectual atmosphere of the Research Clinic will be that of a """"""""think tank"""""""" with the focus on developing methodological innovations and piloting them. Visiting fellows and investigators from across the region will be invited to share their own methodological advances and to learn from those developed here.
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