Home Telerehabilitation for Deconditioned Older Adults

The aim of this study is to develop and determine the feasibility of implementing a home exercise and functional status monitoring telerehabilitation program, known as TEL-REHAB, for older adults 60 years of age and over who are deconditioned following their discharge from the inpatient setting, or recruited from GLA outpatient clinics. Deconditioning is a modifiable risk factor for preventing institutionalization of frail elderly patients who would otherwise be able to live independently. Home exercise programs are an effective intervention to reduce the risk, but patient compliance with home exercise programs, and assessments of patients during home exercise programs, are barriers to achieving maximal benefits. Face-to-face visits with physical medicine professionals are an effective means to perform these functions, but are problematic because of professional time impacts and patient transportation problems. A TEL-REHAB program will empower these patients to take responsibility for their own health by providing ongoing communication with a healthcare provider. In this way, telerehabilitation may assist older adults to remain independent in their homes as long as possible.