Comparison of responders and nonresponders with knee osteoarthritis after transcranial direct current stimulation.

Aim: The study compared responders and nonresponders to transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) regarding clinical pain outcomes in knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients.

Patients And Methods/materials: Sixty participants received home-based active tDCS, and clinical pain outcomes were compared between responders and nonresponders.

Results: Latent class growth analyses classified 41 participants as responders and 19 as nonresponders. Responders showed significantly greater decreases in pain intensity from baseline to post intervention than nonresponders ( < .001). Participants with higher BMI ( = .02) and weight ( = .005) were more likely to respond, while no significant sociodemographic differences were found.

Conclusions: Identifying characteristics of nonresponsive tDCS subgroups can tailor treatments for each group.

Clinical Trial Registration: www.clinicaltrials.gov identifier is NCT04016272.