Table 2.

Participants’ withdrawal reasons and their distribution among the sites and the treatment groups; AU, MQ and MB refer to Australia (Melbourne), Quebec (Montreal) and Manitoba (Winnipeg) sites; R2, R4 and S4 refer to 2 and 4 weeks active and 4 weeks sham treatment groups.

Withdrawal reasons	Site/Group, #
	AU	MQ	MB
Finding treatment painful and/or exhausting		1 R2	1 R4
Other unrelated illnesses	1 R2, 1 S4	1 R2
Missing several treatments and/or assessments due to weather, commuting issues, etc.	1 S4	1 R2, 1 R4
Caregiver felt treatment is unproductive		1 S4	1 R4, 1 S4
Caregiver sickness		1 S4
Patient being non-compliant (too much movement under the treatment); PI decision to withdraw			1 R2
Patient felt too anxious before starting the treatment	1 R4		2 R4
Patient changed medication during the treatment	1 R4		1 R2
Plausible side effect, PI decision to withdraw for safety (MQ patient felt brain fog and chest pain after one session of treatment; MB patient felt numbness in the left side of face and left arm for a few minutes after the second treatment at night)		1 R4	1 R2
Due to pandemic and labs' closure	1 R2, 2 R4, 1 S4
Patient and carer became unresponsive to contact		1 S4	1 R4, 1 S4
Patient became ineligible by postponing the starting date			1 R2
Total (count, %)	9 (24 ​%)	8 (17 ​%)	11 (15 ​%)