Telerehabilitation needs: a bidirectional survey of health professionals and individuals with spinal cord injury in South Korea.

OBJECTIVE: To assess multiple facets of awareness, understanding, value, needs, and desirability to resolve issues regarding unmet medical needs of individuals with a disability by adopting telerehabilitation. The survey included collection and analysis of current services as well as of supplementary and future services of rehabilitative interventions in South Korea. STUDY DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-six health professionals who were members of the Korean Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine and 57 individuals with spinal cord injury responded to a survey of those belonging to two non-profit professional groups, one group belonging to the Korean Spinal Cord Injury Association and joining the National Spinal Cord Injury Wheelchair Games and the other group belonging to the Jeong-Sang-Hye (High Quad Spinal Cord Injury Association) and having joined one of the focus groups of the Korea National Rehabilitation Research Institute. The two surveys were designed specifically for investigating each group's perspectives of awareness, understanding, value, needs, and desirability of telerehabilitation.
RESULTS: The survey responses indicated that there is great interest in the possibility of telerehabilitative services among individuals with spinal cord injury. In particular, there was a strong interest expressed in services that can be used to resolve issues on unmet medical needs of individuals with a disability related to health monitoring, sustaining health, rehabilitation interventions, and independence of activities of daily living.
CONCLUSIONS: Telerehabilitation holds great promise as a bridge to traditional face-to-face clinical service delivery. From the results, there are a few categories in the survey that indicate notable differences between the two groups regarding the awareness, desirability, order of preference in rehabilitation service, and telerehabilitation expenses.