All studies of tele-rehabilitation in participants of any age with physical impairment and in any setting were eligible for inclusion in the review. Tele-rehabilitation was defined as the use of communication and information technologies to provide clinical rehabilitation services from a distance. Included participants comprised those exposed to a variety of rehabilitation and control interventions connected to neurological or cardiac events, spinal cord injury, speech-language impairment and other conditions. Clinical outcomes and healthcare utilisation measures were the outcomes of interest. Outcomes included in the review related to physical, functional and psychological capacity, and hospitalisation, emergency room admissions and physician visits. Clinical process outcomes were reported, but did not form part of this abstract. Studies were excluded if they dealt only with mental illness, included telephone-only interventions or smart home monitoring devices or evaluated only support for caregivers of participants.
Studies were selected by one reviewer. Studies' relevance to the review was confirmed by a second reviewer.