The Effectiveness of Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation on Psychological Distress and Quality of Life in the Elderly

Elderly appears to be a sensitive period of human life, which causes people to experience psychological distress and lower quality of life, through creating many challenges. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effectiveness of transcranial direct-current stimulation on psychological distress and quality of Life in the elderly. The research method was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest control group design. The population includes all the elderly who referred to counseling centers in Tehran in 2019, among whom 30 were selected using convenience sampling and according to the including and excluding criteria, and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups equally. In order to measure the variables, Mason et al.’s psychological distress questionnaire as well as Ware and Sherbourne’s quality of life questionnaire were used. The participants of the experimental group underwent transcranial direct-current stimulation for ten 120-minute sessions. The data were analyzed using univariate covariance analysis (ANCOVA). The findings showed that after controlling the effect of the pre-test, there was a significant difference between the mean score of the experimental and control groups in terms of psychological distress and the components of quality of life including social functioning, physical role playing, emotional role playing, mental health and vitality in post-test. However, no significant difference was observed in the components of physical performance, physical pain and general health. In general, according to the results of this research, transcranial direct-current stimulation can be applied as a method to reduce psychological distress and to improve the elderly’s quality of life, along with other treatment methods.