Physical medicine and rehabilitation clinics of North America
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Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am · May 2021
ReviewTelehealth for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis are neurodegenerative diseases requiring interdisciplinary rehabilitation services to maximize function, manage symptoms, prevent complications, and promote higher quality of life. Distance and disability may pose barriers to access of subspecialized care. ⋯ This article details the utility of telehealth services across the disease spectrum-including to establish a diagnosis, monitor progression for ongoing management, and identify and manage symptoms and provide therapy interventions. The challenges and promise of telehealth services for clinical care and research will be explored.
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Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am · May 2021
ReviewTelemedicine for Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation and Orthopedic Postoperative Rehabilitation.
Telehealth visits result in high-quality care, with high patient and provider satisfaction. Strong evidence suggests that virtual physical therapy is noninferior to conventional face-to-face physical therapy for a variety of musculoskeletal disorders. ⋯ The novel coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has led to improved reimbursement for telehealth visits and accelerated widespread implementation of telemedicine. This article establishes experience and evidence-based practice guidelines for conducting telemedicine visits, with emphasis on the virtual physical examination.
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Telerehabilitation for pain management uses communication technology to minimize geographic barriers. Access to such technology has proven critically important during the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic and has been useful for patients with chronic pain disorders unable to travel. ⋯ The goals of care are unchanged from an in-person patient-provider experience. Telerehabilitation can be successfully implemented in pain management with appropriate consideration for staging an evaluation, a structured approach to the visit, and application of standard clinical metrics.
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Pediatric rehabilitation focuses on optimizing function and quality of life of children through a holistic and transdisciplinary patient-centered team approach. This article describes the incorporation of telehealth in pediatric rehabilitation and its growth over the past decade. It also reviews the experience of practitioners using telehealth by necessity during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests many applications where telehealth can appropriately substitute for traditional in-person visits, and there are many potential applications of telehealth to be explored as a means to enhance connectivity of the interdisciplinary rehabilitation team and the outreach to patients in remote and underserved areas.
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With the rapid shift to telemedicine brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, physiatrists must get accustomed to the new technology and learn how to optimize their evaluations. For those practitioners managing patients with acquired brain injuries, which include stroke and traumatic brain injury, this can seem a daunting task given potential physical and cognitive barriers. However, as the authors discuss techniques to optimize visits, the aim is to illustrate how telehealth appointments can not only be comparable to in-person examinations but also may help increase outreach, compliance, and even satisfaction among this unique population.