Abstract
Introduction
Despite adequate inpatient rehabilitation, a number of spinal cord injury (SCI) individuals suffer from difficulties at home and in their local environments. This is mainly prevalent in low–middle-income countries (LMIC) due to a lack of qualified personal caregivers. This issue could be addressed with the help of telehealth technology, which may be used in LMICs without economic concerns.
Case presentations
A 44-year-old male with C3 AIS C SCI and a 35-year-old female with T12 AIS A SCI were discharged after successful rehabilitation from a tertiary care spinal center. The patients demonstrated gradual loss in their independence, which was evident by monitoring their home activities biweekly for 4 weeks via a combination of telephone calls, live video chat, and WhatsApp. Subsequently after 4 weeks of consistent guidance, pre–post scores after teletherapy were analyzed for the self-care and mobility subcomponents of the self-reported SCIM III.
Discussion
After consistent supervised guidance via telehealth, self-care scores improved in the C3 AIS C case from 3 to 15 and in the T12 AIS A case from 4 to 15, while mobility scores respectively improved from 14 to 27 and 4 to 16. Identification of individual competencies, performance, and capacity in activities of daily living and participation, self-assessment, caregiver training, and home integration contributed toward successful community integration. This case series documents the benefits of using telehealth and home goal planning in the aftercare of SCI individuals, in order to improve quality of life in their local environment.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank both the individuals and their caregivers for their participation. The authors would like to give special thanks to Dr H.S. Chhabra and Dr Chitra Kataria for the constant support.
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NT, SAG, and MA declare no conflicts of interest; however, MA is currently developing plans to develop a nonprofit organization, Telerehabilitation International, in which she plans to recruit volunteer physiatrists to provide telehealth to persons with neurologic disabilities.
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Tyagi, N., Amar Goel, S. & Alexander, M. Improving quality of life after spinal cord injury in India with telehealth. Spinal Cord Ser Cases 5, 70 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-019-0212-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-019-0212-x
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