Effect of cranial electro-stimulation on cognition in perimenopausal women: randomized control study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) on cognition among perimenopausal women.

Methods: The pretest-post-test randomized controlled trial was conducted between April 2024 and January 2025. Forty-six perimenopausal women, aged 40-55 years, were randomized into two groups: active CES (n = 23) or sham CES (n = 23). Participants were blinded to the study. Both groups received 30-min sessions, 4 days a week for 4 weeks. The participants were assessed at baseline and at the end of 4 weeks of intervention using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scale.

Results: Demographic and baseline characteristics depicted a normal distribution for both groups, except for MoCA (p < 0.05). Within-group analyses of both groups demonstrated significant differences for MoCA (active CES, p = 0.001; sham CES, p = 0.002) with large effect size ≥ 0.5. Between-group analyses of MoCA showed no significant difference with p = 0.212 and small effect size ≤ 0.3. The time and group interaction effect showed significant improvement with p = 0.001.

Conclusions: CES has the potential to enhance cognitive function in perimenopausal women. Additionally, no adverse events related to the study were reported.