Delivering group treatment via videoconference to individuals with traumatic brain injury: A feasibility study

Abstract

The objective was to assess the feasibility of delivering a group treatment to improve emotional regulation via videoconferencing to individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). A pre-post feasibility study was undertaken. Seven individuals with TBI were recruited at a brain injury research centre in an urban medical centre. The main measures were therapist assessment of session-by-session progress and feasibility, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire (BREQ), Satisfaction with Therapy and Therapist Scale (STTS), and exit interview. Attendance across sessions and participants was over 90%. Adequate skill acquisition and ease of use of the technology were demonstrated. Self-reported satisfaction with treatment was high. Participants noted several benefits in terms of the treatment delivery modality. There was no change is self-reported emotional dysregulation. This is the first study to report the use of videoconferencing for the delivery of group treatment to individuals with TBI. The exceptional compliance and self-reported satisfaction suggest that this treatment delivery option could be a viable alternative for increasing access to healthcare in this population. The findings of the study supported the development of a large clinical trial to assess treatment effectiveness.

Reductions in Alexithymia and Emotion Dysregulation After Training Emotional Self-Awareness Following Traumatic Brain Injury: A Phase I Trial

“…1–4,10,12,13 While a few emotion regulation treatment studies in the TBI population have incorporated some emotional self-awareness training, it has typically been a small part of a holistic approach and changes in alexithymia were not evaluated. 44–48 Consequently, this is the first study to examine proof of concept for a treatment that focused primarily on improving components of alexithymia (e.g. emotional awareness, labeling, interoceptive awareness) in people with TBI.…”

Technology and its role in rehabilitation for people with cognitive-communication disability following a traumatic brain injury (TBI)

“…problem-solving and emotional dysregulation) noted minimal behavioural changes immediately post-intervention [58, 93,98,100,104,105,107]. However there was high participant satisfaction with using tele-practice [93] and greater changes observed in outcome at follow-up [58, 98,100,104,105,107].…”

“…Cognitive-communication rehabilitation is now conducted via telerehabilitation with a substantial research interest in this area [28,39,79,84,89,93]. Indeed, telerehabilitation for MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTED -BRAIN INJURY: 02 FEBRUARY 2017 17 people with TBI featured in 38 of the included papers (see Table 2), comprising 2 systematic reviews [39,79], 22 group comparison trials [23][24][25]30,35,52,58,74,77,82,84,[98][99][100][104][105][106][108][109][110][111]113], 9 case series [28,50,80,83,93,97,101,102,107] Importantly, no statistically significant differences were found between the tele-practice and face-to-face intervention delivery methods [39,79].…”

“…Cognitive-communication rehabilitation is now conducted via telerehabilitation with a substantial research interest in this area [28,39,79,84,89,93]. Indeed, telerehabilitation for people with TBI featured in 38 of the included papers (see Table 2), comprising 2 systematic reviews [39,79] Two systematic reviews [39,79] included a total of 26 studies evaluating tele-practice in TBI, support for family members (n = 16), assessment (n = 8), and intervention for cognitive impairment (n = 2).…”

Providing Online Memory Interventions for Older Adults: A Critical Review and Recommendations for Development

“…While the research is limited, available literature is encouraging, with individual and group online interventions demonstrating efficacy, safety, and feasibility (Morland et al, ; Strachan et al, ). Individuals participating in online videoconferencing interventions reported feeling positive about the experience, and that online meetings were as helpful as face‐to‐face (Marziali & Donahue, ; Tsaousides, D'Antonio, Varbanova, & Spielman, ). Importantly, similar effect sizes and benefits were found for Internet‐delivered therapy, as compared to their face‐to‐face counterparts, for psychiatric and somatic disorders (Andersson, Cuijpers, Carlbring, Riper, & Hedman, ), depression (Andersson et al, ; Barth et al, ; Spek et al, ), caregiver support (Damianakis, Climans, & Marziali, ), and post‐traumatic stress disorder (Sijbrandiji, Kunovski, & Cuijpers, ).…”