Home Telerehabilitation for Deconditioned Older Adults

Primary Outcome Measures:

• Exercise Adherence [ Time Frame: at monthly intervals, for 3-months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  An 11-week exercise adherence rate was calculated by dividing the total number of days that the participant reported exercising by 77 days and multiplying by 100. This first calculation estimated the exercise adherence rate for the full intervention period regardless of participant dropout. Eleven weeks rather than 12 weeks was used in the denominator because subjects received their HB units some time during the first week of study enrollment and may have missed some days during this first week.
  
  
• HB/Phone Adherence [ Time Frame: Monthly over 3 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  An 11-week text messaging or phone adherence rate was calculated by dividing the number of response days via the HB or phone divided by 77 days and multiplied by 100. This first calculation estimated the text messaging or phone adherence rate for the full intervention period regardless of participant dropout. Eleven weeks rather than 12 weeks was used in the denominator because subjects received their HB units some time during the first week of study enrollment and may have missed some days during this first week.
  
  

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.