Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 30, 2019
Date Accepted: Feb 7, 2020
Postoperative physiotherapy with telerehabilitation in patients treated with esophageal cancer surgery: a feasibility study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Improvement of functional status with physiotherapy is an important goal for patients suffering from postoperative complications after esophagectomy both during and after hospital stay. Supervised physiotherapy with telerehabilitation instead of conventional ‘face-to-face’ care could be an alternative to treat these patients in their home situation after hospital discharge, but its feasibility has not yet been investigated in detail.
Objective:
To investigate the feasibility of a 12-week postoperative supervised physiotherapy intervention with telerehabilitation for patients with esophageal cancer treated with esophagectomy and suffering from postoperative complications. The secondary objective was to investigate the preliminary effectiveness of telerehabilitation on functional recovery compared to usual care.
Methods:
A prospective feasibility study with historical controls was performed. Feasibility outcomes included willingness and adherence to participate, refusal rate, treatment duration, occurrence of adverse events and patient satisfaction. Secondary outcome measures were measurements of musculoskeletal- and cardiovascular functions and activities according to the domains of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF).
Results:
Twenty-two patients with esophageal cancer treated with esophagectomy and suffering from postoperative complications were included. Mean age at surgery was (sd) 64.55 years (6.72) and 17 patients (77.3%) were male. Fifteen patients completed the intervention. Patient adherence was 99.8 % in the first 6 weeks, and dropped to 75.6% in the second period of 6 weeks with a Mean Difference (MD [95%CI]) of -24.3% (1.3 to 47.2); p=0.04). Three months postoperatively, no differences in functional status were found between the intervention and the matched control group.
Conclusions:
This study showed that a postoperative physiotherapeutic intervention with telerehabilitation is feasible for patients with postoperative complications after esophageal cancer surgery up to 6 weeks after discharge from the hospital.
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