Background: As an ever-growing popular service, telehealth catered for better access to high-quality healthcare services. It is more valuable and cost-effective, particularly in the middle of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, this study aimed to systematically review the features and challenges of telehealth-based services developed to support COVID-19 patients and healthcare providers.Methods: A comprehensive search was done for the English language and peer-reviewed articles published until November 2020 using PubMed and Scopus electronic databases. In this review paper, only studies focusing on the telehealth-based service to support COVID-19 patients and healthcare providers were included. The first author's name, publication year, country of the research, study objectives, outcomes, function type including screening, triage, prevention, diagnosis, treatment or follow-up, target population, media, communication type, guideline-based design, main findings, and challenges were extracted, classified, and tabulated.Results: Of the 5,005 studies identified initially, 64 met the eligibility criteria. The studies came from 18 countries. Most of them were conducted in the United States and China. Phone calls, mobile applications, videoconferencing or video calls, emails, websites, text messages, mixed-reality, and teleradiology software were used as the media for communication. The majority of studies used a synchronous communication. The articles addressed the prevention, screening, triage, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up aspects of COVID-19 which the most common purpose was the patients' follow-up (34/64, 53%). Thirteen group barriers were identified in the literature, which technology acceptance and user adoption, concerns about the adequacy and accuracy of subjective patient assessment, and technical issues were the most frequent ones.Conclusion: This review revealed the usefulness of telehealth-based services during the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond. The features and challenges identified through the literature can be helpful for a better understanding of current telehealth approaches and pointed out the need for clear guidelines, scientific evidence, and innovative policies to implement successful telehealth projects.
Background Stroke, as a cerebral vascular accident, leads to brain injury which is characterized by interrupted blood flow. Indeed, impairments in the face, arms, and speech are usual symptoms of a stroke. A variety of disorders emerges after stroke, specific rehabilitation programs are used to restore the lost functions and improve the health status of the patient, mainly if they are applied early. In this study, we tried to present a comprehensive appraisal of recent findings and innovations in mobile games intended for the rehabilitation of stroke survivors. Methods Using keywords of interest including rehabilitation, stroke, mobile/computer, and application/game, a thorough search was performed in PubMed, Scopus, and Embase. Retrieved papers were scrutinized based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results Unfortunately, due to the limitations in the resources and facilities, early rehabilitation is not feasible in most cases. However, mobile technology is a promising avenue to address this hurdle, substantiating in the early rehabilitation practices in stroke patients. Mobile games hopefully brings a bunch of valuable outcomes and benefits, such as innovation, low-cost, and exciting approaches, both in clinical and home settings. Indeed, mobile devices save time, which could be spent to improve fine motor functions, leading to the acceleration of treatment for patients who are at home after discharge from hospitals. Conclusion Acceptable motor improvement, visual perception, cognition, quality of life, satisfaction, and preferences of the patients are essential factors that should be considered in the design of these applications. It was shown that conventional strategies combined with such modern computer-based technologies might have synergistic effects on restoring the lost skills in stroke patients.
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