Telerehabilitation and Physiotherapy Background Definition

Telerehabilitation is a term used to describe the provision of rehabilitation across the spectrum of acute, sub-acute and community settings at a distance, using telecommunications technology as the service delivery medium.1 Telerehabilitation relates to the services delivered by a number of health disciplines including physiotherapy. It may involve the full spectrum of client care including the client interview, physical assessment and diagnosis, treatment, maintenance activities, consultation, education and training. Telerehabilitation utilises a broad range of technologies to facilitate physiotherapy treatment. These include technologies such as the videophone, hardware videoconferencing systems, personal computer based videoconferencing systems with dedicated software tools, sensor technologies and extensive, fully immersive virtual reality systems with and without client feedback. Image based technologies can be successfully used for the remote diagnosis and management of clients. Sensor based telerehabilitation utilises sensor technologies such as tilt switches, accelerometers and gyroscopes to sample and quantify movement through three-dimensional space. Virtual reality based telerehabilitation systems make use of configurable computer-generate