International Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Open Access

Abstract

Sensorimotor telerehabilitation in times of CoViD-19

Toni Muffel

The CoViD-19 pandemic has invoked a drastic reduction in contact to patients undergoing physical or occupational therapy. Related restrictions are beginning to be lifted gradually, but will likely persist in some way well beyond 2020.The preceding months have thereby exposed the weaknesses of therapy as practiced traditionally and clearly shown that the potentials offered by digitalization have not been fully harnessed. Even beyond CoViD-19, digital approaches can support therapists in many ways, for instance by increasing the amount of patients being treated simultaneously or by reducing the interval between sessions. Different rehab apps already exist that can streamline patient communication andmanagement, help in breaking down overarching goals into smaller achievable steps to keep patients motivated and visualize the therapeutic progress or even track therapy-related activity and training. A drawback of such approaches is that although therapists can remotely track progress and set up new training plans, supervision and necessary corrections for inappropriately performed exercises cannot be provided at all times.Newer platforms, like Raccoon.Recovery, overcome this limitation by combining both hardware and software to not only track exercise amount, but also to assess movement quality and immediately provide patients with feedback to their performance. These talks will overview the merits of using an all-in-one solution for telerehabilitation and the thereof resulting advantages for both patients and therapists. Early clinical tests in stroke and TBI patients yielded rich experience and promising first results regarding the efficacy of this kind of telerehabilitation approach.

Published Date: 2020-09-19; Received Date: 2020-09-05