Physiotherapy is coming to a lounge room near you with a University of Queensland lecturer inventing a system to treat patients over the internet via webcam.
Patients and physiotherapists can see and hear each other in real-time using a camera and standard dial-up internet connection.
The software allows physiotherapists to guide their patients to administer their own physical assessments and treatment.
Dr Trevor Russell, the software creator and UQ physiotherapy lecturer, said his telemedicine rehabilitation package was for people in country towns or isolated areas who would normally be without physiotherapy.
“All they need is a little web camera, which costs about $100 to add to their system then they can access the service,” Dr Russell said.
The system was tested on 65 knee replacement patients at QEII Hospital with half of the group treated in person, and the other half via the computer.
Their knees were measured for strength, size and flexibility and then monitored during six weeks of physiotherapy.
The results showed the telemedicine patients had less pain and more mobility particularly in everyday movements such as climbing stairs.
“They reported feeling more in control of their rehabilitation and had higher compliance with a home exercise program.”
He believed his telemedicine system was the first of its kind in physiotherapy.
And the same technology could be applied to speech pathology, oncology, back-to-work therapy, diabetics and stroke, cancer and eye patients.