Recent trends in telerehabilitation of stroke patients
What is it about?
Stroke is one of the leading causes of mortality and disability worldwide. People who underwent stroke suffer from motor dysfunction, balance problems, spatial neglect, speech, language and memory impairments, and depression. Telerehabilitation as a part of telemedicine enables post-stroke individuals to improve their functional status, memory and cognition, upregulating activities of daily living, remaining independency and socialization. Physical and cognitive activity of patients via systematic telerehabilitation training and repetition leads to the neuroplasticity of the brain improving patients’ health and quality of life.
Why is it important?
We summarized most recent randomized and non-randomized clinical trials on a wider range of telerehabilitation of post-stroke patients including three main directions: motor function, cognitive, and language and speech disorders. The review shows telerehabilitation is superior or similar to conventional treatment in clinical outcomes and is used as complementary therapy or as alternative treatments. More importantly, telerehabilitation provides access to rehabilitation services of a large number of patients with immobility, living in remote areas, and during COVID-19 pandemic or similar events leading to a sustainable recovery of stroke patients.