• Robert Suchting, Shweta Kapoor, Kenneth B Mathis, and Hyochol Ahn.
• Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UTHealth McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas.
• Pain Med. 2020 Nov 1; 21 (11): 2676-2683.

ObjectiveThe present study examined the effects of home-based remotely supervised transcranial direct current stimulation on quantitative sensory testing measurements in older adults with knee osteoarthritis. Participants were hypothesized to experience improved pain measurements over time.DesignOpen-label, single-arm trial.SettingSoutheast Texas between March and November 2018 at a nursing school and participant homes.SubjectsOlder adults (aged 50-85 years) with self-reported unilateral or bilateral knee osteoarthritis pain who met eligibility criteria set by the American College of Rheumatology.MethodsThe intervention was applied with a constant current intensity for 20 minutes every weekday for two weeks (10 total sessions). Quantitative measures of pain were collected three times over 10 days (days 1, 5, and 10) and included heat threshold and tolerance, pressure pain threshold, punctate mechanical pain, pain, and conditioned pain modulation. Analyses used nonparametric tests to evaluate differences between day 1 and day 10. Generalized linear mixed models were then used to evaluate change across all three time points for each measure. Bayesian inference was used to provide the posterior probability of longitudinal effects.ResultsNonparametric tests found improvements in seven measures, and longitudinal models supported improvements in 10 measures, with some nonlinear effects.ConclusionsThe home-based, remotely supervised intervention improved quantitative measurements of pain in older adults with knee osteoarthritis. This study contributes to the growing body of literature supporting home-based noninvasive stimulation interventions.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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