Rehabilitation Providers’ Experiences with Rapid Telerehabilitation Implementation During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States (original) (raw)
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Physical Therapy, 2021
Objective COVID-19 has widely affected delivery of health care. In response, telerehabilitation (TR) has emerged as alternative care model. Aims were: (1) to describe baseline patient characteristics and available unadjusted outcomes for episodes of care administered during COVID-19 using TR versus traditional in-person care, and (2) to describe TR frequency levels by condition and telecommunication modes. Methods A descriptive retrospective observational design was used to report patient variables and outcomes including physical function, number of visits, and patient satisfaction, by TR frequency (few, most, or all visits) and telecommunication modes. Standardized differences were used to compare baseline characteristics between episodes with and without TR. Results Sample consisted of 222,680 patients (59% female; mean [SD] age = 55 [18] years). Overall TR rate was 6% decreasing from 10% to 5% between second and third quarters of 2020. Outcome measures were available for 90% to 1...
Commentary Telerehabilitation During COVID-19 Pandemic: Benefits and Drawbacks
Physical Treatments, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted negatively our society and resulted in numerous deaths. It has had an effect on every facet of health care delivery. Rules, regulations, and payment policies were changed to allow extensive use of telecommunications technology in lieu of inperson clinical visits to protect health care personnel and patients throughout the country from the risk of disease transmission. Telerehabilitation (TR) is equally effective in delivering specific health, medical, and rehabilitation expertise from worldclass medical centers to homes and small clinics throughout metropolitan regions.Maintaining social distance and self-isolation during the worldwide coronavirus epidemic requires online courses, films with exercise instructions, or individual online consultations.
New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy
The health response to the COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on neurorehabilitation provision both internationally and in New Zealand. Telerehabilitation, the delivery of rehabilitation at a distance using information and communication technologies, was advocated as a means of addressing the rehabilitation needs of our patients while maintaining physical distancing and reducing the risk of viral transmission. Despite research evidence indicating that telerehabilitation is as effective as in-person rehabilitation for people with neurological conditions, there were significant challenges in delivering and sustaining telerehabilitation practice. We draw upon our experiences in delivering telerehabilitation in neurorehabilitation clinical practice and education to reflect on the process of practice change and to consider how these experiences can inform practice development in the future. We propose that rehabilitation organisations and physiotherapists continue to develop capability to provide telerehabilitation; that physiotherapists and the physiotherapy profession focus on translating their communicative, relational and clinical skills to the digital space to ensure they are competent in telerehabilitation; and that, as a profession, we focus on what constitutes "best practice" in telerehabilitation, and how in-person and telerehabilitation can be integrated to provide engaging, evidence-based and person-centred rehabilitation.
Journal of Clinical Medicine
In many health systems, it is difficult to carry out traditional rehabilitation programs as the systems are stressed. We evaluate the effectiveness of a telerehabilitation program conducted in primary care in post-COVID-19 patients. An observational, prospective study was conducted in seven primary care centers in Chile. We included adult patients (>18 years) with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The telerehabilitation program consisted of 24 sessions of supervised home-based exercise training. The efficacy was measured by the 1-min sit-to-stand test (1-min STST), the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), fatigue, and dyspnea symptoms before and after intervention. We included 115 patients (55.4% female) with a mean age of 55.6 ± 12.7 years. Fifty-seven patients (50%) had antecedents of hospitalization, and 35 (30.4%) were admitted to the ICU. The 1-min STST was improved after the intervention from 20.5 ± 10.2 (53.1 ± 25.0%predicted) to 29.4 ± 11.9 (78.2 ± 28.0%predicted) rep...
Telerehabilitation during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Patients and Physical Therapists’ Experiences
Medical Principles and Practice, 2022
Highlights of the Study • This study was aimed at exploring satisfaction and attitudes of patients towards telerehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic, and at reporting physical therapists' experience with the use of telerehabilitation. • Most patients were satisfied with telerehabilitation during COVID-19 pandemic, facing no difficulties in managing their conditions remotely. • Physical therapists had positive experiences with telerehabilitation during COVID-19 pandemic using professional guidelines. • Physical therapists favor the use of telerehabilitation as an adjunct method during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Negah Institute for Scientific Communication, 2021
Objectives: COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences highlighted the importance of using telerehabilitation systems and affected the professional’s attitude toward it. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility, satisfaction, and attitude of rehabilitation professionals toward telerehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran. Methods: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the feasibility, satisfaction, and attitude of rehabilitation professionals toward virtual training and telerehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 118 occupational therapists, speech therapists, audiologists, psychologists, and educators completed the study questionnaires. Results: The findings indicate that the correlations among satisfaction, feasibility, advantages, and compatibility were significant (r ranging from 0.418 to 0.717). There were significant but weak positive correlations between years of working experience and scores of feasibility and advantages. In addition, the mean scores of feasibility, advantages, compatibility, and complexity in participants who provided telerehabilitation before the COVID-19 pandemic were higher than other respondents. Discussion: Because of the positive role of telerehabilitation in a situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic, health care systems should create mechanisms for its optimal use, protocol preparation, health professionals training, and infrastructure acquisition.
PLOS ONE
Background About 40% of patients who have had COVID-19 still have symptoms three months later whereas a 10% may experience physical and/or psychological consequences two years later. Therefore, it is necessary to perform preventive interventions when patients are discharged from the hospital to decrease the aforementioned sequelae. The purpose of this pilot-controlled trial will be to determine the efficacy of a rehabilitation program on functional status and psychosocial factors for post-COVID-19 patients when it is delivered through a tele-care platform versus a booklet-based rehabilitation. Methods The estimated sample size will be of 50 participants who have been discharged after COVID-19 and have a level of fatigue equal or greater than 4 on the Fatigue Severity Scale. The primary outcome will be the severity of fatigue. Participants will be randomly allocated to an “asynchronous telerehabilitation group” or to a “booklet-based rehabilitation group”. Treatment in both groups wi...
BMJ Open
ObjectivesDetermine the safety, feasibility and initial efficacy of a multicomponent telerehabilitation programme for COVID-19 survivors.DesignPilot randomised feasibility study.SettingIn-home telerehabilitation.Participants44 participants (21 female, mean age 52 years) discharged home following hospitalisation with COVID-19 (with and without intensive care unit (ICU) stay).InterventionsParticipants were block randomised 2:1 to receive 12 individual biobehaviourally informed, app-facilitated, multicomponent telerehabilitation sessions with a licenced physical therapist (n=29) or to a control group (n=15) consisting of education on exercise and COVID-19 recovery trajectory, physical activity and vitals monitoring, and weekly check-ins with study staff. Interventions were 100% remote and occurred over 12 weeks.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe primary outcome was feasibility, including safety and session adherence. Secondary outcomes included preliminary efficacy outcomes incl...
Medical Principles and Practice
Objectives: This study aimed to explore patients’ satisfaction and attitudes regarding telerehabilitation use during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to report physical therapists’ experiences with the use of telerehabilitation. Subjects and Methods: A modified Telemedicine Satisfaction and Usefulness Questionnaire (TSUQ) was used to assess the satisfaction and attitudes of musculoskeletal patients who had received telerehabilitation services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight physical therapists to explore their experiences with telerehabilitation, including the difficulties and benefits. Results: Out of 53 patients received telerehabilitation, 46 questionnaires were completed, with a response rate of 86.8%. In general, the patients were satisfied with and had positive attitudes towards the telerehabilitation services. The majority of the patients felt more involved in their care via telerehabilitation (89.2%) and believed that...