NCT04046536

rTMS in Alleviating Pain and Co-Morbid Symptoms in Gulf War Veterans Illness (GWVI)

rTMS in Alleviating Pain and Co-morbid Symptoms in GWVI

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 204 (actual)
• Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study aims to look at the effectiveness of using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in relieving pain and other co-morbid symptoms of Gulf War Illness.

Detailed description

Headaches (HA), muscle and joint pain, are some of the most common debilitating symptoms in military personnel served in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War (GW1). Migraine like HA and diffuse body pain were detected in 64% of Gulf War Veteran (GWV) diagnosed with Gulf War Illness (GWI). Likewise, depression carries a very high co-morbid rate (50%) in patients with chronic pain, and in GWV with GWI related chronic HA and body muscle and joint pain conditions (GWI-HAP). Unfortunately, conventional pharmacological treatments for GWI-related pain has not been shown to be effective and drugs such as narcotics contain many long term untoward psychosomatic and abusive side effects. This study is assessing the effectiveness of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), non-invasive treatment option, in alleviating pain and other co-morbid symptoms of GWI.

Conditions

• Gulf War Illness
• Depression

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation	A non-invasive treatment that emits magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain.
DEVICE	Sham Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation	Sham rTMS will consist of the same parameters as active, however, the subject will not receive the actual magnetic stimulation due to the use of a double sided Active/Sham coil used specifically for research studies.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-10-01
• Primary completion: 2025-06-30
• Completion: 2025-12-01
• First posted: 2019-08-06
• Last updated: 2025-12-18

Locations

3 sites across 1 country: United States

Regulatory

• FDA-regulated device study