Harvey MP, et al. – The clinicians evaluated the feasibility of conducting a randomized sham–controlled trial and collected preliminary data on the efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to reduce pain and improve sleep in older adults suffering from chronic pain. They presented guidelines for the implementation of future tDCS studies in larger populations of elderly individuals. In this population, M1 anodal tDCS seemed to be effective to reduce pain, but not to improve sleep.

• The clinicians randomized 14 elderly individuals (mean age 71±7 years) suffering from chronic pain and sleep complaints to receive either anodal tDCS, applied over the primary motor cortex (2 mA, 20 minutes), or sham tDCS, for 5 consecutive days.
• They measured pain with visual analog scales, pain logbooks and questionnaires, while sleep was evaluated with actigraphy, sleep diaries and questionnaires.

• The clinicians found no missing data for pain and sleep measures that generated several missing data, except for actigraphy.
• For both the evaluator and participants, blinding was maintained throughout the study.
• Active tDCS significantly reduced pain, but not sham tDCS (P<0.05).
• In both the active and sham tDCS groups (all P≥0.18), no change was observed in sleep parameters.