Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Telerehabilitation is the use of communication technologies to remotely deliver rehabilitation services to patients with transportation barriers or separated by geographical distance. It is a new and exciting area of research in stroke rehabilitation. Recently, research has shown promising results on the use of telerehabilitation for stroke recovery, but there remains a lack of knowledge of what areas of rehabilitation people with stroke are interested and willing to receive using telerehabilitation. To develop a better understanding of the perceptions of using telerehabilitation for stroke recovery, we surveyed 102 individuals who have had a stroke about their: 1) uses of consumer technologies (e.g. computers, smartphone, internet); and 2) thoughts on using consumer technologies to receive rehabilitation for stroke recovery. The technologies most commonly owned were: televisions (91%), landline telephones (88.0%) and computers (79.0%). Many individuals reported an interest to receive assessments (58.4%), training and exercise programs (64.0%), and education (61.4%) through telerehabilitation. However, many individuals were not interested to receive telerehabilitation (~39%) and believed that the quality of care would be less than rehabilitation provided in-person (71.0%). There is an interest to receive telerehabilitation for stroke recovery. However, at present telerehabilitation should complement and not replace in-person rehabilitation. An exception to this is when in-person rehabilitation is not accessible by individuals who have had a stroke. In these cases, telerehabilitation could serve as an acceptable alternative. As well, for individuals who are not currently interested in telerehabilitation, efforts should be made to educate and provide demonstrations about what technologies can assist with to increase interest.