Purpose: To explore occupational, physical, and speech-language pathology therapists’ perceived effectiveness of telehealth and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their professional roles. Method: Participants were recruited for the study through a research flyer distrusted via postal mail, emails, social media, and national association websites. An anonymous electronic 19-item survey was developed for this study by the researchers based on a review of the literature and clinical experience. Results. In total, 186 survey responses were obtained, with 152 meeting the inclusion criteria. The average age of participants was 38.6 years with an average work duration of 12.7 years ± 12.5 in their current profession. Participants reported an average of 32.2 ± 17.4 patients on their case load per week, of which 58% were face-to-face, 50.85% were seen via video, and 3.2% via phone. Results from the Likert scale questions revealed that almost 60% of the participants reported they viewed telehealth as a relevant service delivery method and 48.7% reported it is effective in delivering therapy. However, only 17.8% of participants agreed that telehealth is as effective as in-person therapy. Approximately 77% of participants did not have experience with using telehealth before the pandemic and 42.1% felt they did not receive adequate training for the use of telehealth during the pandemic. Benefits of using telehealth reported by participants include increased access to care (38.8%), reduced travel time (53.3%), schedule flexibility (49.3%), and improved continuity of care (26.3%). Conclusions. The findings of this study reveal that the switch to telehealth services provided multiple benefits for therapist and client. Many therapists also held multiple roles such as spouse and parent during the pandemic, making it important to understand how to deal with professional disruption while continuing to deliver therapy services with minimal interruption in client-centered care.

Background The relationship between exercise and lifespan is well documented, but little is known about the effects of specific exercise protocols on modern measures of biological age. Transcriptomic age predictors provide an opportunity to test the effects of high intensity interval training (HIIT) on biological age utilizing whole-genome expression data. Methods A single-site, single-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trial design was utilized. Thirty sedentary participants (aged 40 to 65) were assigned to either a HIIT group or a no-exercise control group. After collecting baseline measures, HIIT participants performed three 10×1 HIIT sessions per week for 4 weeks. Each session lasted 23 minutes, and total exercise duration was 276 minutes over the course of the 1-month exercise protocol. Transcriptomic age, PSS-10 score, PSQI score, PHQ-9 score, and various measures of body composition were all measured at baseline and again following the conclusion of exercise/control protocols. Results Transcriptomic age reduction of 3.59 years was observed in the exercise group while a 3.28-year increase was observed in the control group. PHQ-9, PSQI, BMI, body fat mass, and visceral fat measures were all improved in the exercise group. A hypothesis-generation gene expression analysis suggested exercise may modify autophagy, mTOR, AMPK, IP3K, neurotrophin signaling, insulin signaling, and other age-related pathways. Conclusion A low dose of HIIT can reduce an RNA-based measure of biological age in sedentary males and females between the ages of 40 and 65. Other changes to gene expression were relatively modest, which may indicate a focal effect of exercise on age-related biological processes.