Telerehabilitation intervention protocols for COVID patients : a scoping review / Jason Cedric Advincula, Mary Ferlyn DC. Gacutan and Luis Q. Navarra.

Includes appendices and bibliographical references.

Abstract: Ever since the start of the pandemic, it became clear to physical therapists through evidence that there are better outcomes in symptoms among COVID-19 patients if they undergo physical therapy; however, face-to-face rehabilitation of COVID-19 infected patients places physical therapists at risk of cross-infection. To address this issue, the use of telerehabilitation as a mode of delivery for instruction and even patient monitoring was considered. Authors also expressed their opinions on telerehabilitation such as Salawu et al. (2020) who mentions that at the time, there was still little to no evidence proving the effectiveness or high efficacy of telerehabilitation. Recent studies such as Turcinovic et al. (2021) and others have expressed its effectiveness; however, there are still no available standardized protocols or clinical practice guidelines for the telerehabilitation of COVID-19 patients. Thus, this study seeks to conduct a comprehensive search of the published literature regarding COVID-19 physical therapy interventions and to map out the current evidence and knowledge gaps surrounding the research methodologies and telerehabilitation treatment plans of COVID-19 patients. The study has a Scoping Review Design in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR guideliness. In this study, 939 articles were found through searching in the following databases with specific MeSH Terms: PEDRO, PubMed, BioMed Central & Cochrane Central. These 939 articles were then screened and assessed for their eligibility - specifically, to match the inclusion criteria of the study, leaving only 9 studies to be reviewed. Specific details of each of the 9 studies were listed on a table - the details included are the following: (1) Title, (2) Author & Country, (3) Digital Technology Used, (4) Research Design, (5) Methodology, (6) Interventions/Program and (7) Key Findings/Results. Similar details between studies were tallied and were then compared to other existing forms of literature. A total of 9 studies were reviewed and eventually had the the details of their study listed on a table. Similar details between studies were tallied as well. The studies were conducted in Spain (3), China (2), Brazil (2), Japan (1), USA (1) and Iran (1). A majority of the studies were RCTs (4) followed by Systematic Reviews/Meta-Analyses (3). The most common interventions used in that order were Strengthening Exercises, Deep Breathing Exercises and Aerobic Exercises. In terms of outcome measures, 6-Minute Walk Test (3) and 30-Second Sit to Stand Test (3) were the most commonly used. The most used telerehabilitation technology was any internet-connected device that has access to video conferencing (6). 4 of the studies have shown better outcomes as a result of telerehabilitation when compared to a control. This study was able to map out the available research and the surrounding protocols conducted through telerehabilitation for COVID-19 patients. Our review has shown that there are numerous studies available; however, the number that matches the inclusion criteria of the review are not abundant. The study inherently did not create any conclusions with regard to comparing among the chosen studies on what the most effective protocols are, but have only presented the current literature to future researchers who seek to systematically compare said studies which in turn would create a gold-standard for the telerehabilitation of COVID-19 patients.

Thesis - School of Physical Therapy