Cancer, cognition, and COVID: delivering direct-to-home teleneuropsychology services to neuro-oncology patients.
Neurooncol Pract
; 8(4): 485-496, 2021 Aug.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1315704
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic induced rapid adoption of telemedicine services for neuro-oncology patients at an increased risk of infection. Neuropsychological assessment is important to neuro-oncology care yet challenging to complete outside of a structured testing environment. Teleneuropsychology (TNP) has been explored in limited populations and proven feasible and reliable. Conducting TNP visits directly to patients' home (DTH) had minimal prior study.METHODS:
We used two voluntary surveys to examine acceptance (patients) and feasibility (providers) of DTH-TNP at two regionally diverse medical institutions providing neuropsychological services to neuro-oncology patients from April to September 2020.RESULTS:
A total of 119 patients were scheduled during the study period, 79 of whom completed neuropsychological testing via DTH-TNP. Neuropsychology providers completed surveys on 68 of these encounters (86%). In 98% of cases, neuropsychologists were able to achieve or partially achieve the individually defined goals of their assessment. Common problems reported included patient dysregulation (16%) and slow/unreliable internet (15%). Of the 52 patients who responded, 98% were satisfied with the DTH-TNP experience, and 92% would recommend the virtual visit to others. All respondents felt understood by the examiner (100%) and the majority denied technical difficulties (90%), communication challenges (94%), or privacy concerns (98%). Patients reported reduced risk of infection and saved travel time as favorable aspects of DTH-TNP.CONCLUSIONS:
These preliminary results suggest neuro-oncology patients find DTH-TNP acceptable and neuropsychologists find it a feasible practice, while also recognizing its limitations. Results suggest that further study of DTH-TNP (eg, reliability, validity) for neuro-oncology patients is warranted.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Language:
English
Journal:
Neurooncol Pract
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Nop
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