Timing-dependent effects of transcranial direct current stimulation with mirror therapy on daily function and motor control in chronic stroke: a randomized controlled pilot study.

The study was a pilot trial with a small sample size of 28 participants, which limits the generalizability of the findings. Participants had mild-to-moderate impairments at the chronic stage, so results may not apply to those with severe impairments or acute stroke. There were no follow-up assessments, so it is unknown if the improvements in daily function and movement efficiency were maintained over time. The functional task training was individualized for each participant, which may introduce variability in treatment effects. Some kinematic outcomes showed trends toward improvement in the SEQ group but did not reach statistical significance, possibly due to the small sample size.

The study was funded by Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou, the Healthy Aging Research Center at Chang Gung University, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the National Health Research Institutes, and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that tDCS enhances motor function recovery. All groups, including the sham group, improved equally in motor function scores, indicating that the brain stimulation did not add benefit to physical movement recovery beyond what mirror therapy alone achieved.