Application of transcranial direct current stimulation in stroke rehabilitation: a bibliometrics analysis / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo visualize and analyze the researches on transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for stroke rehabilitation. MethodsThe Web of Science core collection and CNKI were searched for literature on the use of tDCS for stroke rehabilitation, since the establishment of the database until March 31st, 2023. The literature was analyzed wtih CiteSapce 6.2.R2 in term of disciplines, articles number, countries, keywords and co-citation, etc. ResultsA total of 732 articles in English and 322 articles in Chinese were included, and the number of articles was on the rise. The country with the largest number of publications was the United States, and the journal with the highest citation frequency was Stroke. The keywords with high attention in recent years were virtual reality, upper limb and transcranial magnetic stimulation. The clustering words of co-cited literature were aphasia, homeostatic plasticity, and motor recovery, etc. ConclusionThe researches about tDCS for stroke rehabilitation are increasing year by year, and the research fields are diversified. The hotspots include rehabilitation for motor and speech, and combination with other therapy, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and acupuncture. The combination of tDCS with new rehabilitation protocols such as brain-computer interfaces and virtual reality, as well as the selection of individualized stimulation parameters to construct patient-centered tDCS models may be hot in the future.