Evaluating Efficiency of a Provincial Telerehabilitation Service in Improving Access to Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Scope: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, community rehabilitation stakeholders from a provincial health system designed a novel telerehabilitation service. The service provided wayfinding and self-management advice to individuals with musculoskeletal concerns, neurological conditions, or post-COVID-19 recovery needs. This study evaluated the efficiency of the service in improving access to care.

Evaluating the impact of a novel telerehabilitation service to address neurological, musculoskeletal, or coronavirus disease 2019 rehabilitation concerns during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Introduction: A novel telerehabilitation service provides wayfinding and self-management advice to persons with neurological, musculoskeletal, or coronavirus disease 2019 related rehabilitation needs.

Method: We utilized multiple methods to evaluate the impact of the service. Surveys clarified health outcomes (quality of life, self-efficacy, social support) and patient experience (telehealth usability; general experience) 3-months post-call.

Evaluating Community-Facing Virtual Modalities to Support Complex Neurological Populations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic and concomitant governmental responses have created the need for innovative and collaborative approaches to deliver services, especially for populations that have been inequitably affected. In Alberta, Canada, two novel approaches were created in Spring 2020 to remotely support patients with complex neurological conditions and rehabilitation needs. The first approach is a telehealth service that provides wayfinding and self-management advice to Albertans with physical concerns related to existing neurological or musculoskeletal conditions or post-COVID-19 recovery needs.

Review: How Can Intelligent Robots and Smart Mechatronic Modules Facilitate Remote Assessment, Assistance, and Rehabilitation for Isolated Adults With Neuro-Musculoskeletal Conditions?

Worldwide, at the time this article was written, there are over 127 million cases of patients with a confirmed link to COVID-19 and about 2.78 million deaths reported. With limited access to vaccine or strong antiviral treatment for the novel coronavirus, actions in terms of prevention and containment of the virus transmission rely mostly on social distancing among susceptible and high-risk populations.

Robotic Ultrasound Scanning With Real-Time Image-Based Force Adjustment: Quick Response for Enabling Physical Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During an ultrasound (US) scan, the sonographer is in close contact with the patient, which puts them at risk of COVID-19 transmission. In this paper, we propose a robot-assisted system that automatically scans tissue, increasing sonographer/patient distance and decreasing contact duration between them. This method is developed as a quick response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Intraoperative optimization of seed implantation plan in breast brachytherapy.

Purpose: Low-dose-rate permanent-seed (LDR-PS) brachytherapy has shown a great potential for treating breast cancer. An implantation scheme indicating the template pose and needle trajectories is determined before the operation. However, when performing the pre-planned scheme intraoperatively, a change of the patient's posture will cause seed placements away from the desired locations.

Case Report: Utilizing AI and NLP to Assist with Healthcare and Rehabilitation During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected healthcare systems and healthcare delivery worldwide. Policy makers are utilizing social distancing and isolation policies to reduce the risk of transmission and spread of COVID-19, while the research, development, and testing of antiviral treatments and vaccines are ongoing. As part of these isolation policies, in-person healthcare delivery has been reduced, or eliminated, to avoid the risk of COVID-19 infection in high-risk and vulnerable populations, particularly those with comorbidities.

Augmented Reality Guided Needle Biopsy of Soft Tissue: A Pilot Study.

Percutaneous biopsies are popular for extracting suspicious tissue formations (primarily for cancer diagnosis purposes) due to the: relatively low cost, minimal invasiveness, quick procedure times, and low risk for the patient. Despite the advantages provided by percutaneous biopsies, poor needle and tumor visualization is a problem that can result in the clinicians classifying the tumor as benign when it was malignant (false negative). The system developed by the authors aims to address the concern of poor needle and tumor visualization through two virtualization setups.