Effects of One Session of a-tDCS on Women with Chronic Low Back Pain

Document Type : Original article

Authors

1 Student Research Commiittee. MSc Student of Physiotherapy, Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Ph.D, Associate professor in Physiotherapy , Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 General Practitioner, School of Medicine, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran.

Abstract

Background and Aims: The present study aimed to investigate the effects of a-tDCS on pain score in women with Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP).
Materials and Methods: A total of 10 women with CLBP participated in the current double-blind sham-controlled cross-over study. Each participant received one session of a 20-minute, 0.3 mA tDCS with a current density of 0.1mA/cm2 on M1 and DLPFC, concurrently. Pain intensity and electrical pain threshold were assessed immediately prior to and after the treatment. In addition, the disability was assessed before and one week after the treatment. Shapiro-Wilks goodness-of-fit test was used for normality and dependent t-Test was used for data analysis. Values of p ≤ 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.
Results: The results showed no effect of active or sham treatment on the pain intensity, disability, and pain threshold (p>0.05). The mean difference between before and after active treatment were 0.9 (p=0.7) for pain, 5.6 (p=0.7) for disability, and-0/16 for pain threshold (p=0.1). These values were 0.4, 2.4, and -0.73 for sham treatment with p-value greater than 0.05.
Conclusion: The method studied proved to have no significant effect on pain intensity of women suffering from CLBP; however, this finding may be related to the limited sessions of the treatment.

Keywords

Main Subjects


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Volume 7, Issue 3
September and October 2018
Pages 25-33
  • Receive Date: 12 September 2017
  • Revise Date: 30 October 2017
  • Accept Date: 07 November 2017
  • First Publish Date: 23 September 2018