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The purpose of this study was to describe the acceptability of a stroke telerehabilitation platform from the perspective of both patients and therapists. Two public rehabilitation centers participated in a pilot telerehabilitation trial. A theoretical framework was used to conceptualize acceptability. Semi-structured individual interviews with patients and focus groups of therapists were conducted. Most participants and therapists were satisfied with the intervention. Participants emphasized the advantages of staying at home to get their treatments. Therapists were more skeptical at first about their self-efficacy to deliver therapy remotely. There was a consensus among therapists about the need for a combination of telerehabilitation and in-person visits to optimize treatments. While we found overall good acceptability, effectiveness of this technology could be improved via an accessible user interface, complementary rehabilitation material, and ongoing training and technical just-in-time support with therapists., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interest., (Copyright © 2022 Isabelle Gaboury, Rosalie Dostie, Hélène Corriveau, Arnaud Demoustier, Michel Tousignant.)

Purpose: Telerehabilitation could prevent sequelae from COVID-19. We aimed to assess the feasibility of telerehabilitation; describe pulmonary and functional profiles of COVID-19 patients; and explore the effect of telerehabilitation on improving pulmonary symptoms and quality of life., Methods: We conducted a pre-experimental, pre-post pilot study. We recruited COVID-19 patients who had returned home following hospitalization. The intervention included eight weeks of supervised physiotherapy sessions. We documented technological issues, success of recruitment strategies, and participants' attendance to supervised sessions. We measured the impact of pulmonary symptoms on quality of life and functional health., Results: We scheduled 64 supervised sessions with seven participants with few technological issues. Initial scores showed that pulmonary symptoms moderately to highly impacted quality of life. At eight weeks, all patients had improved from 10 to 45 points on the EuroQol-Visual Analog Scale (EQ-VAS) instrument, indicating clinical significance., Conclusion: We developed and administered a telerehabilitation intervention during a global pandemic that targets key symptoms of the relevant disease., (Copyright © 2021 Pamela Tanguay, Nicole Marquis, Isabelle Gaboury, Dahlia Kairy, Matthieu Touchette, Michel Tousignant, Simon Décary.)

The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of an in-home telerehabilitation program for proximal humerus fractures. Seventeen patients with proximal humerus fractures were recruited by an orthopedic specialist during emergency room visits. Telerehabilitation treatments were given at the patient's home over an 8-week period using a videoconferencing system. Pain (Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire [SF-MPQ]), disabilities including shoulder range of motion (flexion, extension, internal rotation, external rotation, abduction), and upper limb function (Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire [DASH]) were measured in face-to-face evaluations before (T1) and immediately after (T2) the program. Participant satisfaction with the health care received was also evaluated at T2 with the Health care satisfaction questionnaire. All the clinical outcomes improved post-intervention (p < 0.05). Also, patient satisfaction was high (overall score of 82 ± 7%). Therefore, in-home teletreatment seems to be a promising way to dispense rehabilitation services for this population.

This study investigated if improvements can be maintained over 24 weeks when in-home pulmonary telerehabilitation is combined with asynchronous self-management education for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Twenty-three community-living elders with moderate to very severe COPD participated in a pre/post-intervention study. Over 8 weeks, they had access to self-learning capsules on self-management, received 15 in-home teletreatment sessions and were encouraged to gradually engage in unsupervised sessions. Participants were assessed before the intervention (T1), immediately after the intervention (T2), and 6 months later (T3). Outcome measures were (1) exercise tolerance (6-minute walk test [6MWT]), Cycle Endurance Test [CET]), and (2) quality of life (Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire [CRQ]). Although there were significant improvements after 8 weeks of pulmonary telerehabilitation on the 6MWT, CET and three of four CRQ domains, none of these improvements were maintained after 6 months and scores returned to their baseline values (all p values > 0.05 when comparing T3 with T1). While pulmonary telerehabilitation is possible and has a positive impact on patients with moderate to very severe COPD, improvements were not maintained in the long-term even when physical therapy was accompanied by self-management education.

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the efficacy of in-home telerehabilitation for people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Three community-living elders with COPD were recruited in a rehabilitation outpatient group and by direct referrals from pneumologists with outpatients who have COPD. A pre/post-test design without a control group was used for this pilot study. Telerehabilitation sessions (15 sessions) were conducted by two trained physiotherapists from a service center to the patient's home. Locomotor function (walking performance) and quality of life were measured in person prior to and at the end of the treatment by an independent assessor. Clinical outcomes improved for all subjects except for locomotor function in the first participant. In-home telerehabilitation for people with COPD is a realistic alternative to dispense rehabilitation services for patients requiring physical therapy follow-up.

This pilot study explored the feasibility of in-home teletreatment for patients with post-stroke anomia. Three participants over 65 years of age suffering from post-stroke anomia were treated in this pre/post-intervention case study. They received 12 speech therapy teletreatments (two sessions/week for 6 weeks) aimed at improving confrontation naming skills. Half of the failed items from a set of 120 preselected stimuli were trained during treatment (Block A-trained stimuli) while the other half served as controls (Block B-untrained stimuli). Variables measured were: 1) efficacy of treatment (performance on Block-A vs. Block B Stimuli), and 2) participants' satisfaction with teletreatment (using a French adaptation of the Telemedicine satisfaction questionnaire). All participants showed a clinically relevant improvement on confrontation naming of trained items and less improvement for untrained items. The researchers also obtained high satisfaction scores on the questionnaire (above 57/60). This pilot study supports the feasibility of speech therapy teletreatments applied to neurological language disorders.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of in-home telerehabilitation as an alternative to conventional rehabilitation services following knee arthroplasty. Five community-living elders who had knee arthroplasty were recruited prior to discharge from an acute care hospital. A pre/post-test design without a control group was used for this pilot study. Telerehabilitation sessions (16) were conducted by two trained physiotherapists from a service center to the patient's home using H264 videoconference CODECs (Tandberg 550 MXP) connected at 512 Kb\s. Disability (range of motion, balance and lower body strength) and function (locomotor performance in walking and functional autonomy) were measured in face-to-face evaluations prior to and at the end of the treatments by a neutral evaluator. The satisfaction of the health care professional and patient was measured by questionnaire. Results are as follows. One participant was lost during follow-up. Clinical outcomes improved for all subjects and improvements were sustained two months post-discharge from in-home telerehabilitation. The satisfaction of the participants with in-home telerehabilitation services was very high. The satisfaction of the health care professionals with the technology and the communication experience during the therapy sessions was similar or slightly lower. In conclusion, telerehabilitation for post-knee arthroplasty is a realistic alternative for dispensing rehabilitation services for patients discharged from an acute care hospital.