What do people with Parkinson's think about telerehabilitation? A thematic analysis of patient interviews

ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the facilitators and barriers to engagement in telerehabilitation programmes among people with Parkinson's disease. Furthermore, we examined whether the exercise modality (dance or multimodal exercise) influenced participants' perceptions of the telerehabilitation experience, including benefits, challenges and engagement.DesignThis is a qualitative component of a randomised clinical trial.SettingGroup-based telerehabilitation delivered via videoconferencing.ParticipantsSixty-three people with Parkinson's disease.InterventionTwo telerehabilitation groups: (1) Multimodal Exercise and (2) Dance, delivered twice a week, in 60-min sessions for three months.Main measuresSemi-structured interviews were conducted via live videoconferencing. We coded and organised the interviews using Atlas.TI software and applied a structured thematic analysis.ResultsTwo themes emerged: (1) Facilitators to engagement in telerehabilitation, including satisfaction, acceptance of online format, recognition of functional, emotional, cognitive and social benefits, appreciation for a disease-specific programme; and instructor's expertise (2) Barriers were problems in programme design and implementation, timing and scheduling conflicts, motor, cognitive and social barriers. The dance group focused on their experience with telerehabilitation, emphasising the emotional and mind-body aspects, while the multimodal exercise group focused on the motor function of activities of daily living.ConclusionsThis study identified facilitators and barriers to engagement in group-based telerehabilitation among people with Parkinson's disease. People with Parkinson's disease reported satisfaction and recognised telerehabilitation as feasible, and highlighted some motor, cognitive, social, technological and scheduling barriers. Additionally, the type of exercise (dance or exercise) influenced people with Parkinson's disease's perceptions of the telerehabilitation experience.