Using Telerehabilitation to Identify Home Modification Needs

Abstract

Teleconferencing technology has great potential for providing cost-effective in-home assessment for home modification services from anywhere to anyone in need. Despite its enormous potential, the use of this technology as a means to deliver these specific services had not been investigated. This project investigated the use of televideo technology to provide remote home assessment services to patients prior to discharge so that they could function as independently as possible in their own homes after being discharged from a specialty clinic. Specifically, an assessment protocol that could be implemented using video-conferencing technology was developed and feasibility of the remote assessment process was determined by validating it against the standard of practice, an in-home assessment by a home modifications specialist. Independent in-home and remote home assessments were completed by two occupational therapists who specialize in home modifications. The results were compared for agreement in identification of specific accessibility problems in and quantitative measurements of the home. The remote assessment correctly identified a total of 51 of the 59 problems (86.4%) identified by the in-home assessment and only identified five problems (8.9%) that were not identified by the on-site assessment. In addition, 54 of 60 (90%) of the quantitative measurements from the remote assessment matched those from the in-home assessment. Findings suggest that remote telerehabilitation assessments have the potential to enable specialists to diagnose potential accessibility problems in home environments and prescribe appropriate modifications regardless of the location of the client, home, or specialist.

Cost Effectiveness of a Telerehabilitation Program to Support Chronically Ill and Disabled Elders in Their Homes

“…23 A number of studies in various care settings illustrate the ability to provide clinical care or augment traditional in-home care through telerehabilitation for varied patient populations. [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] …”

Development of a teletechnology protocol for in-home rehabilitation

“…The videoconferencing system we used in this clinical trial was developed for a previous study on providing remote home assessments [21] and tailored for this project to allow live two-way video and audio patienttherapist interaction. The system consisted of "off-theshelf" technology that used POTS lines, which are located in virtually all homes in the United States.…”

“…Two additional studies demonstrated that videoconferencing technology could be used successfully for developing home-modification recommendations and that videoconferencing equipment produced images sufficient for visualizing and assessing all but fine motor movements (resolution sufficient for therapists at a remote location to determine space measurements in a home with 1/4 in. accuracy) [21][22].…”

Design of a website for home modifications for older persons with dementia

“…First, the participants were asked to look at and comment on screen shots of several websites (Figs 2 and 3). Moreover, work by other researchers regarding websites for older people, the digital provision of in-home assessments for home modification services, and communication practices for people with dementia were consulted [20][21][22][23]. Notes and observations from this first session were used to develop the topics of the second session.…”