Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies
Date Submitted: Nov 15, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 14, 2022 - Jan 9, 2023
Date Accepted: Mar 4, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Use of the digital assistant “Vigo” at home environment for stroke recovery: focus group discussion with specialists working in neurorehabilitation
ABSTRACT
Background:
Tablet-based therapeutic programs present an alternative way to access rehabilitation services and show a new paradigm for providing therapeutic interventions following stroke. Digital assistant “Vigo” provides the opportunity for a new, more integrative way of carrying out a home-based rehabilitation program. It is important to conduct not only research on application efficacy, but also explore professionals working in neurorehabilitation point of view using qualitative methods.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to identify the requirements for a tablet-based home program for stroke recovery from a specialist working in stroke rehabilitation perspective.
Methods:
Focus group study method was chosen to explore specialists' attitudes, experience and expectations about the use of the digital assistant “Vigo” as home-based rehabilitation program for stroke recovery in domains of application’s functionality, compliance, usability and content.
Results:
In total four themes were identified: 1) clinician’s views on using Vigo as a home-based rehabilitation system; 2) patient related circumstances facilitating and limiting the use of Vigo; 3) Vigo application functionality and its use process (programme creation, individual use, remote support; 4) complementary and alternative Vigo use perspectives. Last three themes were divided totally in 10 subthemes and two subthemes had two sub-subthemes each.
Conclusions:
Healthcare professionals expressed a positive attitude towards the usability of the application. It is important that the content and use of the application is coherent with the aim of the program to avoid misunderstanding the practical use and the need for integration in practice and misuse of the application. In all focus groups the importance of close involvement of rehabilitation specialists in the process of the development of the application and research process was highlighted.
Citation
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Copyright
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