Knowledge Structure and Emerging Trends of Telerehabilitation in Recent 20 Years: A Bibliometric Analysis via CiteSpace

Abstract

PurposeTelerehabilitation, as an effective means of treatment, is not inferior to traditional rehabilitation, and solves the problem of many patients who do not have access to hospital-based training due to costs and distance. So far, the knowledge structure of the global use of telerehabilitation has not been formed. This study aimed to demonstrate the state of emerging trends and frontiers concerning the studies of telerehabilitation through bibliometric software.MethodsLiterature about telerehabilitation from 2000 to 2021 was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. We used CiteSpace 5.8.R3 to analyze the publication years, journals/cited journals, countries, institutions, authors/cited authors, references, and keywords. Based on the analysis results, we plotted the co-citation map to more intuitively observe the research hotspots and knowledge structure.ResultsA total of 1,986 records were obtained. The number of annual publications gradually increased over the investigated period. The largest increase occurred between 2019 and 2020. J TELEMED TELECARE was the most prolific and the most cited journal. The United States was the most influential country, with the highest number of publications and centrality. The University of Queensland was the most productive institution. The author Tousignant M ranked the highest in the number of publications and Russell TG ranked the first in the cited authors. Respectively, the articles published by Cottrell MA and Russell TG ranked the first in the frequency and centrality of cited references. The four hot topics in telerehabilitation were “care”,“stroke”, “telemedicine” and “exercise”. The keyword “stroke” showed the strongest citation burst. The two frontier keywords were “physical therapy” and “participation”. The keywords were clustered to form 21 labels.ConclusionThis study uses visualization software CiteSpace to provide the current status and trends in clinical research of telerehabilitation over the past 20 years, which may help researchers identify new perspectives concerning potential collaborators and cooperative institutions, hot topics, and research frontiers in the research field. Bibliometric analysis of telerehabilitation supplements and improves the knowledge field of telemedicine from the concept of rehabilitation medicine and provides new insights into therapists during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dynamic structures and emerging trends in the management of major trauma: A bibliometric analysis of publications between 2012 and 2021

“…The top three institutions were Monash University (90), the University of Washington (77), and Alfred Hospital (52). In Figure 3 , the purple ring indicates the centrality of literature ( 19 ). Some countries and institutions had high centralities, such as the USA (0.3), England (0.11), the University of Pittsburgh (0.15), the University of Washington (0.14), and Monash University (0.1).…”

“…Some countries and institutions had high centralities, such as the USA (0.3), England (0.11), the University of Pittsburgh (0.15), the University of Washington (0.14), and Monash University (0.1). Links between nodes signify relationships of collaboration ( 19 ), and dense connections indicate active cooperation among countries and affiliations.…”

“…The period of interest was 2012-2021. The publication types were confined to original articles and reviews, and only studies published in English were included (18). The screening process is illustrated in Figure 1.…”

“…The CiteSpace software (5.8. R3), developed by Chen Chaomei from Drexel University (18), was used to visualize collaboration networks (countries/regions, institutions, and authors), analyze co-citations (authors, journals, and references), create dual-map overlays, and determine reference citation bursts and keyword co-occurrences. The specific parameters were as follows: time slicing (from January 2012 to December 2021; years per slice = 1), text processing (title, abstract, author keywords, and keywords plus), node type (one option chosen at a time from a country, institution, author, co-cited journal, co-cited author, keywords, and co-cited reference), link strength (cosine), link scope (within slices), selection criteria (g-index, k = 25), and pruning (none).…”

“…This study had the following limitations. According to a study, it is acknowledged that WoSCC is the recommended database for bibliometric analysis (18). Consequently, data were collected from the WoSCC database, whereas data from other sources such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and Embase were not included.…”