Adherence and satisfaction of telemedicine in patients with Parkinson’s disease. A longitudinal, randomized,multidisciplinary-based intervention

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the adherence and satisfaction of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) after participating in a multidisciplinary telemedicine intervention program at home using videoconferences and remote assessments with wearable sensors. Background: Nowadays, new technologies are becoming a fundamental resource in everyday life. PD is more frequent in the elderly compared to the young, who often do not have the necessary skills to handle this technology and cannot easily access social and healthcare resources. On the other hand, remote assessments and telemedicine can facilitate access to social and healthcare services, especially for those living in rural, underserved areas. The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need to develop easy-to-use technologies for the entire population, including patients with PD, but adherence and acceptability of such resources are still unknown.

Methods: Single-center, longitudinal, randomized, two-group study (NCT04694443). PD patients were followed for 8 months via wearable monitoring sensors. In addition, the study group used a simple telemedicine system, with weekly remote Occupational Therapy sessions and monthly teleconsultations with neurologists and nurses. Adherence to the program was evaluated by quantifying the patients who successfully completed their participation in the program. Satisfaction with the telemedicine system, teleconsultations, and wearables, was assessed with the Telemedicine Usability Questionnaire (TUQ), satisfaction structured questionnaires from 1 (totally satisfied) to 7 (totally dissatisfied), and with the Quebec Users’ Evaluation of Satisfaction with Assistive Technology (QUEST), respectively

Results: To date, 38 patients have been included, and 36 patients (95%) have successfully completed their participation in this telemedicine program. After completing the program, the patients reported high satisfaction using telemedicine (mean TUQ score of 139.13±4.34), videoconferences including multidisciplinary health interventions (mean satisfaction in each session of 1.15±0.49), and with the wearable sensors (mean QUEST score of 4.35±0.44). Conclusions: This multidisciplinary telemedicine program for patients with PD, including videoconferences and remote assessments with wearables, showed high adherence and satisfaction. These results demonstrate that telemedicine can be considered a valid and accepted resource for providing multidisciplinary care to PD patients.

José Luis Garrido-Labrador

Assistant Lecturer in Computer Languages and Systems

PhD in Machine Learning, researching in semi-supervised learning and restricted set classification. Assistant Lecturer in Computer Languages and Systems at Universidad de Burgos.