JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Persons with disabilities (PwDs) need rehabilitation interventions to improve their physical functioning, mental status, and quality of life. Many rehabilitation interventions can be delivered digitally via telehealth systems. For PwDs in underserved areas, digitally delivered rehabilitation interventions may be the only feasible service available for them.

Objective:

The goal of this study is to evaluate the current status of digital intervention for PwDs in remote and underserved areas.

Methods:

A systematic review was conducted on this topic. Keyword searches in multiple databases (PubMed, CINAHL, and INSPEC) were performed to collect articles published in this field. The obtained articles were selected based on our selection criteria. Of the 198 identified articles, 16 duplicates were removed. After a review of the titles and abstracts of the remaining articles, 165 were determined to be irrelevant to this study and were therefore removed. The full texts of the remaining 17 articles were reviewed, and 6 of these were removed as being irrelevant to this study. The 11 articles remaining were discussed and summarized by two reviewers.

Results:

These 11 studies cover a few types of disabilities such as developmental disabilities and mobility impairment, as well as several types of disability-causing disorders, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, and facio-scapulo-humeral muscular dystrophy. Most of these studies were small-scale case studies and relatively larger scale cohort studies; the project evaluation methods were mainly pre-post comparison, questionnaires and interviews. A few also performed objective assessment of functional improvement. The intervention technology was mainly video conferencing. Ten of these studies were for PwDs in rural areas and one was for people in urban communities.

Conclusions:

A small number of small-scale studies have been conducted on digital interventions for PwDs in underserved areas. Even though the results reported in these studies were mostly positive, they are not sufficient to prove the effectiveness of telehealth-based digital intervention in improving the situation among PwDs because of the small sample sizes and lack of randomized controlled trials.