FisioCare Neurogroup: A new application for home monitoring of individuals with neurological diseases.
Patrick R Avelino, Kênia K P Menezes, Christina Danielli Coelho de Morais Faria and 4 others
PMID 42688797WHAT IT FOUND
A Brazilian team built a free smartphone app that lets physiotherapists assign home exercises to neurological patients and track whether they do them.
Ten patients tried it; seven finished. No evidence yet that it improves recovery.
Key findings
01The app was developed in five stages following a prototyping paradigm, with input from a five-physiotherapist expert committee, ten physiotherapists who reviewed the layout, and ten physiotherapists plus ten patients who tested the working prototype for one week.
02In the pilot test, all ten physiotherapists reported no difficulty using the app, while the seven patients who completed the week reported minor issues — finding the exercise program, forgetting to send feedback, editing profile details, and small font size — but rated solving each problem as easy to very easy, except one patient with great difficulty reading and one with moderate difficulty editing their profile.
03Three of the ten patients dropped out of the pilot, reporting forgetfulness and lack of time; the authors note that difficulty using the app may have contributed to these dropouts.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
This is a design and usability description, not a clinical trial. No patient outcome was measured, so there is zero evidence the app improves functional recovery, adherence, or any other clinical endpoint. The pilot test involved only 10 patients, 3 of whom dropped out, leaving 7 who completed the week. This is far too small to draw any generalisable conclusion about usability or adherence. The sample was not randomly selected and came from a single institution in Brazil, so it may not represent the wider population of neurological patients or physiotherapists. The patient group mixed stroke, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis. The authors themselves note that the accessibility needs of a stroke survivor (hemianopsia, aphasia) differ substantially from those of a Parkinson's patient (resting tremors), and a sample of 10 cannot capture those differences. Usability was not assessed with a standardised scale; the authors acknowledge this and propose using the User Mobile App Rating Scale (uMARS) in future work. The app does not include a built-in exercise database; the physiotherapist must create every exercise description, video, or image from scratch, which may limit uptake in busy clinics.
Declared interests
Funded entirely by Brazilian public research bodies: CAPES, FAPEMIG, CNPq, and the research office of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. No commercial sponsor. The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this paper as evidence that the FisioCare Neurogroup app improves a neurological patient's recovery or increases home-exercise adherence. It is a design description with a seven-patient usability check; no clinical outcome was measured, the sample was tiny and not random, and three of ten patients dropped out. The app is a tool, not a treatment, and nothing in this paper shows it changes a patient's functional result.