Feasibility and Acceptance of Telerehabilitation among Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment or Cognitive Frailty: A Scoping Review (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Older adults are vulnerable towards cognitive frailty that can lead to adverse health outcomes such as cognitive frailty, falls, disabilities, hospitalizations and increased morbidity. With advancement of healthcare technology, there is a potential to manage and reverse cognitive frailty among older adults using a multi-domain intervention programme via telerehabilitation. OBJECTIVE In this review, we aimed to identify the feasibility and acceptance towards telerehabilitation and the common technology used for delivering telerehabilitation among older adults with mild cognitive impairment or cognitive frailty. METHODS Five research databases were searched: PubMed (EMBASE), Embase (Science Direct), Cochrane Database of Systematic Review, IEEE Xplore and Scopus. Articles published from January 2015 until October 2020 were selected. A hand search of JMIR Publications journals was also included RESULTS Of the 1758 articles retrieved, six studies were identified that involved implementation of telerehabilitation targeting older adults with cognitive frailty. Two articles were randomized controlled trials, one pilot study and three were qualitative studies. Telerehabilitation can improve quality of life among participants with mild cognitive impairment and cognitive frailty and found to be feasible as supportive digital platform in digital health care. Some types of technologies commonly used in the studies were smartphone or telephone with Internet, television-based assistive integrated technology, mobile application and videoconference. CONCLUSIONS Telerehabilitation utilization in managing cognitive frailty among older adults is still limited and more research is required to evaluate its feasibility and acceptability. Although telerehabilitation appears to be feasible and accepted among older adults with cognitive frailty, some social support in place is required. Future research should focus on evaluation of acceptance and cost effectiveness of multi-domain intervention via telerehabilitation among older adults with cognitive frailty.