Telerehabilitation Methods in Geriatric Rehabilitation

The worldwide population is getting older day by day. With aging, chronic and systemic diseases leading to functional disabilities reduce the quality of life of geriatric individuals and increase the cost of health care. There is a need for geriatric rehabilitation programs that apply up-to-date, innovative methods to maintain functional capacity, increase social participation, encourage activity in older individuals, and increase efficiency and reduce costs in healthcare services. Recent advances in medical and technological sciences have changed how healthcare services are provided to geriatric individuals and led to the emergence of telerehabilitation. With telerehabilitation, which has the potential to manage many components of health, including the level of functional independence, self-care, and disease management of patients, the levels of disability and costs in health services that may be encountered in geriatric patients can be reduced. This chapter reviews the aging of the population, the importance of rehabilitation in geriatrics, the relationship between older people and technology (the term of gerontechnology), telerehabilitation, its emergence and purpose, advantages and disadvantages of telerehabilitation in geriatrics, comprehensive summaries of several studies examining the effects of telerehabilitation in geriatric patients.