ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neurorehabilitation
This article is part of the Research TopicNew methods in neurorehabilitationView all 25 articles
Cathodal tDCS and robotic therapy for upper 1 limb rehabilitation in chronic stroke: a 2 randomized controlled trial
Provisionally accepted
- 1Tianjin Third Central Hospital, Tianjin, China
- 2Tianjin Union Medical Centre, Nankai University, Tianjin, China
- 3Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China
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This randomized controlled trial evaluated the effect of contralesional cathodal 15 transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) combined with robotic therapy (RT) on 16 upper limb recovery in patients with chronic subcortical ischemic stroke. Thirty-one 17 participants were randomized to receive either active ctDCS or sham stimulation 18 during RT, administered five times per week for four weeks. Outcomes were assessed 19 using clinical rehabilitation scales and robotic evaluation of movement parameters at 20 baseline, immediately post-intervention, and at two-week follow-up. The active group 21 demonstrated significantly greater improvement in Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer 22 Assessment, with a between-group difference of 4.61 (95% CI: 51.36 to 55.46, p = 23 0.023) post-intervention. Functional efficiency (mean difference: 1.82, 95% CI: 9.13 24 to 12.00) and movement speed (mean difference: 3.46, 95% CI: 51.60 to 56.74) also 25 favored the active group. These findings suggest that combining ctDCS with RT may 26 enhance the efficiency of specific upper limb motor tasks in patients with chronic 27 subcortical ischemic stroke, compared to RT alone.
Keywords: Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation, Robotic therapy, Stroke, Upper limb rehabilitation, primary motor cortex
Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Du, Wang and Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Chunfang Wang, chfwang@tju.edu.cn
Hongli Yu, yhlzyn@hebut.edu.cn
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