Efficacy Of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation In Treating Sleeping Disorders In Patients With Parkinson’s Disease

Objective: Sleep disorders are the most common non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.They have significant impact on patients’ quality of life and at present,are often neglected in clinical diagnoses and treatments.The treatment for sleep disorders is most commonly oral medication,which often causes negative side effects on organ functions.Treatment by oral medication can also be impacted by patient non-compliance.Transcranial direct current stimulation,a new noninvasive therapy,can be utilized to treat psychiatric illnesses and neurology diseases such as motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.The aim of my study is to investigate the clinical efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation in treating sleeping disorders in patients with Parkinson’s disease.Method: 51 patients with Parkinson’s disease presenting with sleep disorder were selected according to inclusion and exclusion criteria for a randomized single-blind controlled study.Patients were randomly divided into two groups;group one was treated via transcranial direct current stimulation(26 cases)and group two was treated via a sham stimulation(25 cases).Both groups were provided a 10-day t DCS true and false stimulation treatment.All patients were assessed before and after the treatment using the unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale(UPDRS),Parkinson’s disease sleep scale(PDSS),Mayo sleep questionnaire(MSQ),Epworth sleepiness scale(ESS)and polysomnography(PSG).Follow-up assessments were carried out 1 month later.Any patient discomfort experienced during the experiment was recorded ad-hoc.The IBM SPSS Statistics 22 statistical software was used for statistical analysis.Results:(1)Before treatment,there was no statistical difference in the scale scores between the stimulus group and the sham group.After transcranial direct current stimulation treatment,the scores of UPDRS Ib,PDSS,ESS and overall sobriety score from the MSQ in the stimulus group showed significant improvement.However,the evaluation of the frequency of RBD symptoms in MSQ showed no statistically significant difference before and after treatment.There was no statistical difference in the before and after treatment scale scores in the sham group or after treatment scale scores between two groups.(2)In the results from the polysomnography before treatment,there was no statistical difference between the two groups.After t DCS treatment,the total sleep time,sleep efficiency and the number of micro-awakening of patients in the stimulus group show significant improvements compared to those in the sham group.The number of awakenings in the stimulation group decreased after treatment,but there was no statistical difference between the two groups after treatment.(3)There were no adverse reactions identified in either groups during treatment and the 1 month follow-up after treatment.Conclusions: This study shows that t DCS is effective in treating sleep disorders in patients with Parkinson’s disease.It can increase the total sleep time and sleep efficiency of patients with PD presenting with sleep disorders as well as relieve symptoms such as daytime sleepiness and fatigue.No adverse reactions were observed during the study.