ArticleNPJ digital medicine2026
A randomized trial of a digitally delivered, home-based neuromodulation and mindfulness intervention for pain management in older adults with knee osteoarthritis.
Article in NPJ digital medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04375072 (Combination Therapy of Home-based Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Mindfulness-based Meditation for Self-management of Clinical Pain and Symptoms in Older Adults With Knee Osteoarthritis), which is not on this map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Combination Therapy of Home-based Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Mindfulness-based Meditation for Self-management of Clinical Pain and Symptoms in Older Adults With Knee Osteoarthritis
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a major cause of chronic pain and disability in older adults, yet scalable home-based interventions remain limited, partly due to the lack of clinically effective digital solutions. This study is the first fully powered randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial to test a digitally delivered, home-based protocol combining transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and mindfulness-based meditation (MBM) for knee OA pain. A total of 208 participants were randomized to active tDCS + MBM, active tDCS + sham MBM, sham tDCS + active MBM, or double sham; they completed ten 20-min sessions over 2 weeks. Knee pain intensity was measured at baseline, post treatment, and monthly for 3 months. Although both active tDCS groups improved, the difference between the combined tDCS + MBM intervention and tDCS alone was not statistically significant. Benefits were not sustained at 3 months. These findings offer the first evidence that a remotely supervised, digitally delivered tDCS + MBM intervention can rapidly reduce knee OA pain, supporting future personalized and extended treatment studies. Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04375072 (registered May 7, 2020).
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.