Telerehabilitation Methods in Pediatric Rehabilitation

Inequalities or other inherent barriers to access to healthcare in urban and rural populations are often significant problems in healthcare delivery. Expensive and long journeys are often the way to overcome these barriers and deliver services. Due to technological developments, new rehabilitation practices have begun to be developed to create organizationally and economically sustainable models. Telerehabilitation, a branch of telehealth, aims to save time and resources in healthcare by using computer-aided systems. The biggest advantage of pediatric telerehabilitation is that it reduces the treatment gap by providing doorstep healthcare to needy pediatric patients, especially those in remote areas. In addition, family education ensures that the family takes an active role in the treatment. Although healthcare professionals have used telerehabilitation for a long time, it has received renewed attention with the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies conducted with children and their families diagnosed with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Becker muscular dystrophy, Arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, autism, and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia have shown that telerehabilitation is feasible, accepted by families, and similar results are obtained with face-to-face applications for children.