Telerehabilitation: Review of the State-of-the-Art and Areas of Application.
Alessandro Peretti, Francesco Amenta, Seyed Khosrow Tayebati and 2 others
PMID 28733271WHAT IT FOUND
Remote rehabilitation systems can be feasible for some cardiac, neurological and physiotherapy patients.
No standard protocols exist, and many systems were tested in small studies.
Key findings
01The review selected 27 articles and found telerehabilitation used primarily in cardiac, neurological and physiotherapy rehabilitation.
02In a cardiac telerehabilitation system, 4 patients were studied and 39 training sessions were completed, but ECG connection failed in 27% of sessions and blood pressure measurement failed in 23%.
03A review of 898 studies on Internet-based physiotherapy assessment found most approaches valid except lumbar spine posture, with low to moderate effectiveness.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The review selected only 27 articles after excluding pilot studies, so it may not capture the full range of telerehabilitation work. Many systems were tested in very small groups, including 4 patients in the cardiac example, so findings may not generalize to larger or more impaired patients. The review did not establish standard procedures or protocols, and it says applications are still being tested with limited numbers of patients. Only English-language articles were included, so relevant studies in other languages may be missing. Some remote systems had technical failures, with ECG connection failing in 27% of sessions and blood pressure measurement failing in 23%.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as proof that telerehabilitation is as effective as face-to-face therapy. The authors say there are no standard procedures or protocols, and many applications were tested only in small studies.