Telerehabilitation of the hand: the Re.Mo.To. project experience

Telerehabilitation is a branch of telehealth aimed at delivering medical rehabilitation services at a distance through ICT systems. The deployment of effective telerehabilitation programs can foster a more equitable access to the rehabilitation services for the patients living far from the specialized centres and increase the number of subjects being involved in a rehabilitation program. In this paper, the main final outcomes of a research project aimed at the development of a telerehabilitation device conceived for patients with functional hand impairments due to the progression of invalidating rheumatic diseases are presented. In the context of an approved clinical trial it has been possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system in a real setting. The encouraging results open to further studies in the field from both medical and bioengineering perspectives