Authors (including presenting author) :
Fung KHW(1), Chan JSY(1), Tam DHL(1), Chan DCY(1), Yeung AKC(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Physiotherapy Department, Prince of Wales Hospital
Introduction :
Many aspects of clinical services were affected during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially pediatric service since parents worried about bringing their children to hospital. Infrequent follow-up sessions caused decrease in exercise compliance and further delay in children’s developmental progress. As the growth of children could not be delayed, we proposed a pilot service model with tele-therapy and video-conferencing replacing some sessions of face-to-face physiotherapy training to continue developmental training during the pandemic.
Objectives :
To enhance the developmental training for children with developmental delay and increase their home exercise compliance under COVID-19 pandemics
Methodology :
Pilot trial of tele-rehabilitation was conducted last year. We recruited subjects with developmental delay which parents expressed difficulties in attending face-to-face training. We triaged different cases and conducted both individual and group therapy sessions for efficiency purpose using the software ”Zoom” . Verbal consents and explanations were given via phone prior to the sessions. The tele-therapy session lasted about 45-60mins including developmental skills re-assessment, exercise prescription and advice to parents for home training with home equipment utilization. After the tele-sessions, we interviewed the parents for their satisfaction and opinions towards tele-therapy using questionnaire.
Result & Outcome :
11 subjects were included in this pilot service program, they attended 1.91 sessions of tele-therapy on average. We were able to reach out to 8 parents for questionnaire interview via phone, the average age of their children was 5.1 years old. From the interview, 87.5% of parents agreed that tele-therapy could enhance their developmental training at home, by utilizing home equipment for training during COVID-19 pandemics. 100% of interviewed parents were interested in receiving developmental training video to assist their training and 87.5% of them are confident to perform basic training at home with the help of tele-therapy and training videos. However, only 37.5% of interviewed parents supported replacement of face-to-face sessions by tele-therapy sessions. Also, 50% of the interviewed parents increased their training frequencies and sessions with their children. The mean improvement of exercise compliance in these subjects was 55%.
On the other hand, we were producing a developmental exercise video series including core strengthening, ball skills and balance training. We aimed to produce a more comprehensive exercise video bank and explore channels to disseminate the videos to the targeted parents and patients.
