Effects and side effects of tDCS in movement disorders of children and adolescents

Many studies about the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation have been carried out on different conditions in adults. But just few studies have been done in children and adolescents because of the concerns about this stimulation, and a few studies in recent years have studied the effects of this stimulation in this group.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects and side effects of brain electrical stimulation in children and adolescents with movement disorders.
This article is a literature review, which was performed on studies in the period of 2000-2015, using Pub Med, Science Direct, OVID, Springer, Cochrane and Google scholar about the effects and side effects of tanscranial direct current stimulation in children and adolescents with motor disorders
of 162 articles and based on the inclusion and exclusion criterias finaly 9 articles were chosen to be reviewed. These studies demonstrated that the combined use of tDCS and other treatments such as routine physical therapy, treadmill and virtual reality in children and adolescents improves the balance and gait parameter in lower limbs and decreases the spasticity in upper limbs. The only reported adverse effects In these studies were redness , itching burning and transient mood changes.
This study showed that the electrical stimulation of the brain through direct current stimulation not only doesn’t cause seizures ,but also can be used as a therapeutic method in patients with seizures.
the results indicates that other than itching and mood change, this current in children and adolescents does not cause another adverse effects at least in the short term. When it is used with other treatments, it can cause desirable effects in children and adolescents with motor impairment.