Strategies to implement and monitor in-home transcranial electrical stimulation in neurological and psychiatric patient populations: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Transcranial electrical stimulation is a promising technique to facilitate behavioural improvements in neurological and psychiatric populations. Recently there has been interest in remote delivery of stimulation within a participant’s home. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this review is to identify strategies employed to implement and monitor in-home stimulation and identify whether these approaches are associated with protocol adherence, adverse events and patient perspectives. METHODS: MEDLINE, Embase Classic + Embase, Emcare and PsycINFO databases and clinical trial registries were searched to identify studies which reported primary data for any type of transcranial electrical stimulation applied as a home-based treatment. RESULTS: Nineteen published studies from unique trials and ten on-going trials were included. For published data, internal validity was assessed with the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool with most studies exhibiting a high level of bias possibly reflecting the preliminary nature of current work. Several different strategies were employed to prepare the participant, deliver and monitor the in-home transcranial electrical stimulation. The use of real time videoconferencing to monitor in-home transcranial electrical stimulation appeared to be associated with higher levels of compliance with the stimulation protocol and greater participant satisfaction. There were no severe adverse events associated with in-home stimulation. CONCLUSIONS: Delivery of transcranial electrical stimulation within a person’s home offers many potential benefits and appears acceptable and safe provided appropriate preparation and monitoring is provided. Future in-home transcranial electrical stimulation studies should use real-time videoconferencing as one of the approaches to facilitate delivery of this potentially beneficial treatment.