Cognitive rehabilitation interventions

Abstract The aim of the present study was investigating 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 specified the extent of the effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on improvement of neurocognitive function in people with mild neurocognitive impairment. Method: 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, using ‘MCI’, ‘transcranial direct current stimulation’, tDCS, and ‘mild cognitive impairment’ key words for foreign articles and their Persian equivalents for Persian articles. Of the 29 studies, 11 that were methodologically acceptable were meta-analyzed. The research tool was a meta-analysis checklist. Results: The results of meta-analysis 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 is a large effect. Conclusion: This result shows clinicians can choose transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as effective intervention for patients who suffer from mild cognitive impairments. More investigations are necessary to find the cognitive benefits of using transcranial direct current stimulation in elderly people and other cognitive impaired persons.