Article

The objective of the telerehabilitation is a continuation of the
rehabilitation process on patients' home. The study also compares the balance
training in clinical environment with the telerehabilitation approach when the
physiotherapists and physicians can follow the progress remotely. METHOD: In this
paper, the preliminary study of the pilot project with virtual reality (VR)-based
tasks for dynamic standing frame supported balance training is presented. Six
patients with stroke participated in the study.
The patients performed the
balance training 3 weeks, 2 weeks in the clinical settings and 1 week in the home
environment, five times a week, and each time for up to 20 minutes. Objective
effectiveness was demonstrated by parameters as track time, number of collisions
and the clinical instruments Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Timed Up & Go (TUG), 10-m
walk test and standing on the unaffected and affected extremity. The outcomes
were compared to the balance training group without VR and telerehabilitation
support. A 2-way ANOVA was used to explore the differences between the both
stroke groups. RESULTS: In patients who were subject to VR supported balance
training, the BBS demonstrated improvement for 15%, the TUG for 29%, the 10-m
walk for 26%, stance time on the affected and unaffected extremity for 200 and
67%, respectively. The follow-up demonstrated that the patients preserved the
gained functional improvement. The VR task performance time and number of
collisions decreased to 45 and 68%, respectively. Besides, no statistical
differences were found between the telerehabilitation approach with VR supported
balance training and conventional balance training in clinical settings either
regarding the overall mean level or regarding the mean improvement. CONCLUSIONS:
The telerehabilitation approach in VR supported balance training improved balance
in stroke patients and had similar effect on patients' postural functional
improvement as conventional balance training in clinical settings. However, when
balance training is continued on patient's home instead of the hospital, it would
eventually decrease the number of outpatients' visits, reduce related costs and
enable treatment of larger number of patients.

Langue : ANGLAIS