What Are the Barriers to Telerehabilitation in the Treatment of Musculoskeletal Diseases?

Abstract

Introduction: Musculoskeletal-related chronic pain is one of the most disabling in the world, with knee osteoarthrosis (OA) being one of the main causes of functional limitation and chronic pain among people over 45 years of age. In view of this, the expansion of telehealth services, including telerehabilitation, allows less restricted access to health services, reducing expenses and saving time. Purpose: The aim of the study was to verify the barriers to the implementation of telerehabilitation in the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal diseases compared to face-to-face rehabilitation. Data Source: The data were obtained from PubMed, Scopus, the Virtual Health Library (VHL), Cochrane, and the Web of Science databases. Methods: This systematic review followed PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines to answer the PICOT question, “What are the barriers to implementing a telerehabilitation program for older people with knee osteoarthritis?”. The risk of bias was analyzed using the Review Manager program (RevMan). A search for articles was conducted and included only randomized clinical trials with older people with knee OA, selected by two blinded authors, according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, without publication time restriction, in the PROSPERO registry CRD42022316488. Results: The barriers to telerehabilitation have been overcome with the diversification of means of communication, the various possible ways of monitoring these patients from a distance, and the scheduling of face-to-face assessments and reassessments. The results presented in this review indicate that the barriers to implementing treatment protocols have been overcome, leading to clinical results which showed that there were no differences between the telerehabilitation and face-to-face groups for the clinical condition investigated. Conclusion: The barriers to telerehabilitation, which were more related to Internet access, telecommunication devices, personal relationships, and adequate monitoring of the exercise protocol, were overcome by diversifying the means of communication and delivering the exercise protocol for the implementation of telerehabilitation.