Abstract:
Background: Telerehabilitation provides another way to provide rehabilitation services. Information and communication technologies are used to facilitate communication between healthcare and patients in remote areas. As the speed and complexity of communications technology increases, the use of telerehabilitation becomes more feasible.
Objective: To summarize the best evidence effectiveness of telerehabilitation applications for improving activities of daily living, upper limb function, balance, and cost-effectiveness in stroke patients.
Methods: Intensive search was done in electronic databases: PubMed (October 2020), Cochrane Library (November 2020), and PEDro (November 2020), we also checked the reference lists. This search was done to include RCTs that compare telerehabilitation applications with face-to-face therapy for patients after stroke. Then, the methodological quality of each included trial was assessed, and the data was extracted. Finally, the results were analyzed by pooling the data of change scores between pre-and post-intervention through calculation of the overall standardized mean differences with a 95% confidence interval.
Results: We included 14 studies with a total of 1353 participants. Telerehabilitation applications may have not a significant effect on activities of daily living, upper limb function, and balance. Only three studies reported the results of the use of the health services provided in the study or the cost of the interventions and found that the number of visits for people who received interventions during the three-month follow-up evaluation was significantly reduced.
Conclusion The included randomized controlled trials have no evidence to show the effectiveness of telerehabilitation applications in improving people's activities of daily living after stroke.