JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

This rapid communication highlights stroke telerehabilitation, a health care service providing daily monitoring of stroke patient care, leading to immediate feedback for patients, family, and caregivers as well as convenience of scheduling. The delivery, management, and coordination of nursing care services, provided via telecommunications technology, is a convenient method of delivering health care to patients recovering from stroke. It is important to assess the service quality of the telehealth process and to establish the role of telehealth nursing and related technology toward stroke patient care. Research findings and studies show that even though health professionals and participants have reported high levels of satisfaction and acceptance of telerehabilitation interventions, overall, the quality of the evidence on telerehabilitation in post-stroke care remains low. Conducting a quality study related to telehealth rehabilitation for stroke patients will help assess if home health agencies with telehealth capability caring for patient populations with stroke rehabilitation and chronic diseases can provide quality care to patients in their home setting and fill the health care gap. Severely handicapped and impaired patients that are unable to reside in their home environment are not included in telerehabilitation services provided by the home care agency. It would be informative to study the benefits of telerehabilitation and stroke patient care in the population residing in nursing homes. It would put the chronic care patients at a lesser risk of exposure to infectious agents in situations of pandemics. Future research of telehealth interventions and stroke management in home care will be important.