Issue title: Telerehabilitation
Guest editors: Bruce J. Diamond
Article type: Research Article
Authors: Schopp, Laura H.a; b; * | Hales, Joseph W.b | Brown, Gordon D.b | Quetsch, Joseph L.b
Affiliations: [a] Department of Health Psychology, School of Health Professions, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO, USA | [b] Department of Health Management & Informatics, School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO, USA | William Paterson University, Department of Psychology, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Department of PM&R, P.O. Box 43592, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. Tel.: +1 973 720 3400; E-mail: diamondb@wpunj.edu
Correspondence:
[*]
Address for correspondence: Laura Schopp, Ph.D., ABPP, Department of Health Psychology, University of MO-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65212, USA. Tel.: +1 573 882 8847; Fax: +1 573 884 4540; E-mail: Schoppl@health.missouri.edu
Abstract: Decreased length of inpatient rehabilitation stay, greater long-term injury survival rates, broader access to information technologies, and the growing role of the Internet create potential for new models of rehabilitation that are more community- and person-centered rather than historically hospital- and provider-centered services. In recent years, information-based rehabilitation technologies have grown rapidly, expanding the possibilities for numerous interventions to promote independent living. These programs have centered primarily on providing rehabilitation health services over a distance (“telerehabilitation”). Telerehabilitation can be conceived as part of a broader approach that includes elements of direct rehabilitation services, service coordination, community resources, and information relay between numerous individuals, service providers, and community members (“rehabilitation informatics”). Because of the complexity of these information types and sectors, this broader conceptual approach of rehabilitation informatics borrows heavily from fields such as adaptive computing, robotics, computer networking, and high-level systems programming. As such, innovation in rehabilitation informatics will require new models of training that span these domains. This paper proposes a rationale for the new field of rehabilitation informatics, and offers a multidisciplinary training model for the next generation of rehabilitation informaticians.
Keywords: informatics, disability, telehealth, telerehabilitation, brain injury, spinal cord injury
DOI: 10.3233/NRE-2003-18208
Journal: NeuroRehabilitation, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 159-170, 2003
