Telehealth review
This is a review of the effectiveness of exercise-based telemedicine on pain, physical activity and quality of life in the treatment of chronic pain.
Aim of the project: To systematically review the evidence on the effectiveness of exercise-based telemedicine in chronic pain.
Publication details: Published in Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare 2018 Vol 24(8): 511-526. Adamse C, Dekker-Van Weering MGH, van Etten-Jamaludin FS and Stuiver MM
Stakeholders involved:
- Antonius Hospital, The Netherlands
- Roessingh Research and Development
- Medical Library, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- University of Amsterdam
Background
- Chronic pain has a large and detrimental impact on quality of life, daily function, sleep, working status and depression
- Telemedicine for the treatment of chronic pain has potential advantages:
- Increase accessibility
- Enables treatment in the home
- Enables personalised feedback in a functional setting
- Can increase quality of care through integration
- Lower cost.
Results
- Exercise-based telemedicine showed:
- significantly lower pain scores, better physical activity versus no intervention, but not versus usual care or in addition to usual care
- No differences in quality of life
- Patient satisfaction was good (average 6/10) and interactive features and support were valued
Exercise-based telemedicine did not seem to add value to usual care but may be applicable as a substitute to usual care.
Discussion
- Most exercises in this review were low intensity – high intensity programs have been shown in other studies to be more effective than low intensity programs
- These findings suggest telemedicine is equal to usual face-to-face care and could be used as a substitute
- We need to be aware that telemedicine may be more relevant to younger, computer literate people
- There is still need for further research due to limited quality of the evidence.
Recommendations
- Treatment of chronic pain often requires multidisciplinary interventions such as education, self-management and exercise
- Exercise-based telemedicine interventions appear to be effective in reducing pain and improving physical activity for chronic pain patients compared to no intervention
- Telemedicine might not be feasible for all chronic pain patients as previous research suggests drop-out rates of about 27%.
Resources
- Download a PDF of this page: Telehealth review (PDF, 103kb)