Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on language function in adult with poststroke aphasia: A network...

This study used a network meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with different stimulation modes in the treatment of post-stroke aphasia (PSA) and ranked them.

The author searched PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CBM, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP databases from database inception to July, 22, 2025, for randomized controlled trials (RCT) of tDCS for patients with PSA. The risk of bias assessment tool for RCT was used. The quality of the literature was independently evaluated and validated.

The assessment included seven items: random sequence generation, allocation concealment, blinding of participants and investigators, blinding of outcome assessors, completeness of outcome measures, selective reporting, and other bias. Each item was graded as high risk, low risk, or unclear. All study data were well-integrity and no selective reporting occurred; no other bias was reported in any RCT. All included studies used efficacy rate to evaluate efficacy. A meta-analysis was performed on 10 studies, and the heterogeneity test I0 = 0, it was considered that the studies were homogeneous. The effective rate of the treatment group was significantly better than that of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant.