Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jun 14, 2021
Date Accepted: Oct 3, 2021
Identification and description of balance, mobility, and gait assessments conducted via telerehabilitation for individuals with neurological conditions: A scoping review protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 global pandemic pushed many rehabilitation practitioners to pivot their in-person practice to adopt telerehabilitation as their main method of delivery. In addition to documenting information on interventions used with clients, it is best practice for therapists to use reliable and validated outcome measures to inform their interventions.
Objective:
Through this scoping review, we aim to identify: 1) which outcomes are being used remotely to assess balance, mobility, and gait in patients with neurological conditions, and 2) what psychometric data (validity, reliability, etc.) for remotely-administered outcomes are available.
Methods:
Three main concepts will be included in our search: 1) neurological conditions, 2) administration by telerehabilitation and 3) outcome measures for balance, mobility and gait. Studies reporting remote assessment of neurological conditions published since 1990 will be included. The database search will be completed in Medline (Ovid), CINAHL, Pubmed, PSychINFO, EMBASE, and Cochrane. Grey literature including dissertations, conference papers and protocol papers will also be sourced. Two reviewers will independently screen each title and abstract using pre-established inclusion and exclusion criteria. Manuscripts which appear to meet the criteria will be subject to further review, and full text extraction using a pre-piloted extraction sheet if all criteria are met. The data will be categorized by assessment types describing impairments (such as balance, strength and mobility) or activity limitations or participation restriction (such as functional mobility, ambulatory functions, and activity of daily living).
Results:
The optimal use of telerehabilitation as a mode to deliver rehabilitation intervention should be coupled with the completion of validated outcome measures. Therefore, it is crucial to further our knowledge on remote outcome measures and therapeutic assessments. To date, we have completed the search and are in the process of screening the articles for inclusion.
Conclusions:
This scoping review will document outcome measures currently used in the remote assessment of neurological conditions.
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Copyright
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