Implementation of physiotherapy telerehabilitation before and post Covid-19 outbreak: A comparative narrative between South American countries and Australia
Antonio Michell, Manuela Besomi, Pamela Serón, Matías Voigt, Rodrigo Cubillos, Felipe Parada-Hernández, Óscar Urrejola, Thaiana Barbosa Ferreira-Pacheco, Danilo de Oliveira Silva, Jéssica Bianca Aily, Jorge Enrique Moreno Collazos, Iván Darío Pinzón-Ríos, Clara Liliana Aguirre-Aguirre, Rana S. Hinman, Kim L. Bennell, Trevor Russell
Abstract
The continuous development in telecommunication tech-nologies has created opportunities for health professionals to optimise healthcare delivery by adopting digital tools into rehabilitation programs (i.e., telerehabilitation). These tech-nological advances, along with the demographic and social characteristics of each country, have made the implementa-tion of telerehabilitation a disparate process across regions. We have gathered the experience of four countries (Australia, Chile, Brazil, and Colombia) in two different regions (Ocea-nia and South America) to recompile the history pre- and post-Covid-19 outbreak until January of 2021, the barriers to, and facilitators of telerehabilitation, and outline the future challenges for these countries.