Objective: To propose a telehealth prevention, treatment and follow up physiotherapy protocol for monitoring a group of individuals with Parkinson disease (PD) in order to minimize the deleterious effects of coronavirus pandemic.

Background: Due to the current pandemic scenario, rapid changes were necessary in the field of rehabilitation, requiring new models of care that can be promoted by technology via telerehabilitation.

Method: A prospective case of series will be conducted involving 35 participants recruited from a physiotherapy ambulatory specialized in PD, which before the pandemic developed its activities in a presential way. The project was approved by the Institutional Research Ethics Committee. The study will be divided into five parts. The first part will consist on phone calls in order to consider the possibility of execute the study by means of online physiotherapy and the second part on training in the use of social media. The third part will consist of assessment procedures, via telephone contact, of the following outcomes (instruments): functional lower extremity strength (Five Times Sit-to-Stand); fear of falling (Falls Efficacy Scale); quality of life (Parkinson´s Disease Questionnaire); depression and anxiety (Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale); activities of daily life (MSD – Unified Parkinson´s Disease Rating Scale part two); cognition (Verbal Fluency Test). The outcomes will be evaluated at baseline and after the intervention protocol and the comparisons will be performed using SPSS 20.0. The fourth stage will consist in physiotherapy online intervention and will be carried out with the aim of prevention, rehabilitation and health promotion. The telehealth protocol will be composed by commemorative/social activities, online weekly physiotherapy sessions, printed material with physical and cognitive activities and educational lectures. In fifth stage, after the completion of all phases above, a qualitative study will be carried out through telephone interview.

Results: The results will be derived from the instruments above after the intervention period of 20 weeks.

Conclusion: This project investigates the viability, execution and effectiveness of a telerehabilitation protocol developed to individuals with PD and allow comparisons between face to face and online intervention.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/strategies-of-prevention-treatment-and-follow-up-through-telehealth-for-individuals-with-parkinson-disease-during-covid-19-pandemic-study-of-protocol/