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.

我们的研究结果指出，单次经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）治疗对客观睡眠质量具有显著的疗效，这一效果在术后短期内表现为深度睡眠时间、快速眼动睡眠时间以及总睡眠时间的增加。同时，该疗法提升了深度睡眠和快速眼动睡眠的比例；然而，浅睡眠的比例则有所降低。此外，我们还发现tDCS能够改善康复质量并缓解疲劳。我们建议，这种神经调节方法可作为预防术后睡眠障碍（POSD）的预防性替代方案之一。然而，我们的发现仍需在未来通过多中心随机对照试验进一步验证。