Combination of different noninvasive brain stimulation treatments for upper limb recovery in stroke patients: A systematic review

Abstract

Abstract We report a review of Pubmed (Medline), CENTRAL, Web of Science, and Scopus to test the effectiveness of the combined application of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation in the improvement of different functional variables of the upper limb in people with stroke. Two independent reviewers assessed eligibility and evaluated the quality of the studies. Five articles were included in the final review according to the inclusion criteria: Most show statistically significant differences in motor function improvement in favor of the experimental group, but not in activity. Due to the heterogeneity of the observed studies, the results should be interpreted with caution—more high‐quality studies are needed to investigate the effectiveness of these interventions in different stages of stroke patients.

Keywords

• noninvasive brain stimulation
• transcranial magnetic stimulation
• transcranial direct current stimulation
• motor control
• upper extremity
• neuroscience