Meta-analysis of the Effectiveness of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Neurocognitive Function in People with Mild Neurocognitive Impairment

نویسندگان

1 PhD student, Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Iran, Tehran

2 Professor, Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Iran, Tehran

3 Professor, Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Iran, Tehran

4 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Iran, Tehran

doi
10.30473/ijohp.2020.54628.1113
چکیده

Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on neurocognitive performance in people with mild neurocognitive impairment. Using meta-analysis and integrating the research results, this study has examined the extent of the effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on the improvement of neurocognitive function in people with mild neurocognitive impairment. Method: For collecting data for meta-analyses, Magiran, SID, and Irandoc databases were used to search Persian articles and Science direct, Scopus, and PubMed databases were used to find foreign articles by the use of keywords of ‘MCI’, ‘transcranial direct current stimulation’, tDCS, and ‘mild cognitive impairment’ and their equivalences for Persian articles. Of the 29 studies, 11 methodologically acceptable were meta-analyzed. The research tool was a meta-analysis checklist. Results: The results of the study indicated publication bias in the studies. Due to the heterogeneity of the studies, a random-effect model was used. The effect of Hedges for the impact of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on neurocognitive functions in people with mild neurocognitive impairment was 0.26, which was a large effect. Conclusion: This result shows that clinicians can choose transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as an effective intervention for patients who suffer from mild cognitive impairments. More investigations are necessary to find out the cognitive benefits of using transcranial direct current stimulation in elderly people and other cognitive impaired persons.