Decade-Long Impact of Trans-cranial Direct Current Stimulation in Alzheimers Disease

Abstract

Alzheimers disease (AD) is a protracted illness with no known cure. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an upcoming treatment for the disease. However, clinical studies conducted to study its impact on patients are very limited in duration and sample size. This limits the use of tDCS to AD patients over the long-term. To address the issue, this work uses an Alzheimers disease progression model (ADPM) to extrapolate the results from shorter clinical studies (10days to 6months) to a longer duration (10years). ADPM is a machine learning model of AD created using ADNI (Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative) data from over a decade. It has been demonstrated to be better at predicting progression of AD compared to other models. Since AD is a progressive disease, it is useful to know about the impact of tDCS over a longer duration and predict the optimal duration and site of treatment. To achieve this goal, present work integrates limited data from tDCS treatment of AD patients and extrapolates it to a decade using the AD prediction model (ADPM). Based on this, it provides guidelines for site, dose and duration of treatment for patients with AD.