Effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on postoperative sleep disturbance in elderly patients undergoing lower-limb major arthroplasty: A prospective, double-blind, pilot, randomized, controlled trial

Our results suggested that a single session of tDCS has a therapeutic effect on the objective sleep quality which was manifested by the increase of deep sleep time, REM sleep time, and total sleep time in a short term after the operation. It also increased the proportion of deep sleep and REM sleep; however, the proportion of light sleep was decreased. Additionally, we found that tDCS can improve quality of recovery and alleviated tiredness. We suggest that this neuromodulatory approach can be part of the prophylactic alternatives available for POSD. However, our findings need to be further validated in future studies with multi-center randomized controlled design.

我们的研究结果表明，单次经颅直流电刺激（transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS）对客观睡眠质量具有治疗作用，具体表现为术后短期内深睡眠时间、快速眼动睡眠（rapid eye movement sleep, REM sleep）时长及总睡眠时间均有所增加。该疗法同时可提升深睡与快速眼动睡眠的占比，但会降低浅睡的占比。此外，我们发现tDCS能够改善术后恢复质量并缓解疲劳感。我们认为，此种神经调控手段可作为术后睡眠障碍（Postoperative Sleep Disorder, POSD）的预防性可选方案之一。不过，本研究的结论仍需未来开展多中心随机对照设计的研究来进一步验证。