Telemedicine and Virtual Reality at Time of COVID-19 Pandemic: An Overview for Future Perspectives in Neurorehabilitation.

In catastrophic situations such as pandemics, patients' healthcare including admissions to hospitals and emergency services are challenged by the risk of infection and by limitations of healthcare resources. In such a setting, the use of telemedicine interventions has become extremely important. New technologies have proved helpful in pandemics as a solution to improve the quality of life in vulnerable patients such as persons with neurological diseases. Moreover, telemedicine interventions provide at-home solutions allowing clinicians to telemonitor and assess patients remotely, thus minimizing risk of infection. After a review of different studies using telemedicine in neurological patients, we propose a telemedicine process flow for healthcare of subjects with chronic neurological disease to respond to the new challenges for delivering quality healthcare during the transformation of public and private healthcare organizations around the world forced by COVID-19 pandemic contingency. This telemedicine process flow represents a replacement for in-person treatment and thereby the provision equitable access to the care of vulnerable people. It is conceptualized as comprehensive service including (1) teleassistance with patient counseling and medical treatment, (2) telemonitoring of patients' health conditions and any changes over time, as well as (3) telerehabilitation, i.e., interventions to assess and promote body functions, activities, and consecutively participation. The hereby proposed telemedicine process flow could be adopted on a large scale to improve the public health response during healthcare crises like the COVID-19 pandemic but could equally promote equitable health care independent of people's mobility or location with respect to the specialized health care center.

Virtual Reality as a Technological-Aided Solution to Support Communication in Persons With Neurodegenerative Diseases and Acquired Brain Injury During COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 poses an ongoing threat to lives around the world and challenges the existing public health and medical service delivery. The lockdown or quarantine measures adopted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has caused the interruption in ongoing care and access to medical care including to patients with existing neurological conditions. Besides the passivity, isolation, and withdrawal, patients with neurodegenerative diseases experience difficulties in communication due to a limited access to leisure opportunities and interaction with friends and relatives. The communication difficulties may exacerbate the burden on the caregivers. Therefore, assistive-technologies may be a useful strategy in mitigating challenges associated with remote communication. The current paper presents an overview of the use of assistive technologies using virtual reality and virtual body ownership in providing communication opportunities to isolated patients, during COVID-19, with neurological diseases and moderate-to-severe communication difficulties. We postulate that the assistive technologies-based intervention may improve social interactions in patients with neurodegenerative diseases and acquired brain injury-thereby reducing isolation and improving their quality of life and mental well-being.

Digital Interventions for Psychological Comorbidities in Chronic Diseases-A Systematic Review.

Chronic diseases represent one of the main causes of death worldwide. The integration of digital solutions in clinical interventions is broadly diffused today; however, evidence on their efficacy in addressing psychological comorbidities of chronic diseases is sparse. This systematic review analyzes and synthesizes the evidence about the efficacy of digital interventions on psychological comorbidities outcomes of specific chronic diseases. According to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic search of PubMed, PsycInfo, Scopus and Web of Science databases was conducted. Only Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) were considered and either depression or anxiety had to be assessed to match the selection criteria. Of the 7636 identified records, 17 matched the inclusion criteria: 9 digital interventions on diabetes, 4 on cardiovascular diseases, 3 on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and one on stroke. Of the 17 studies reviewed, 14 found digital interventions to be effective. Quantitative synthesis highlighted a moderate and significant overall effect of interventions on depression, while the effect on anxiety was small and non-significant. Design elements making digital interventions effective for psychological comorbidities of chronic diseases were singled out: (a) implementing a communication loop with patients and (b) providing disease-specific digital contents. This focus on "how" to design technologies can facilitate the translation of evidence into practice.