Home-based physiotherapy programmes for individuals with neurological diseases: systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: Home-based programmes have received increasing attention in rehabilitation, providing an opportunity to continue aspects of therapy, benefiting the retention of established intervention effects. Objective: To describe the available home-based physiotherapy programmes in neurorehabilitation for people with neurological diseases. Method: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, OTseeker and PEDro were searched, no restrictions regarding the date of publication or language restrictions for randomized controlled clinical trial. The quality of the selected studies using the PEDro scale and the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing the risk of bias. Results: Fifteen articles met the eligibility criteria and quality assessment and were selected for the present systematic review. The findings supports the positive impact of home-based intervention, finding evidence in the changes in activity level, improvement in the control and muscle strength, balance and walking in patients with neurological conditions who perform rehabilitation program at home, with a good adherence of participants in total. Conclusion: Models of rehabilitative such as home-based programmes can be an alternative efficient method to deliver rehabilitation, showing to be beneficial in improving different aspects of activities, and participation.