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.