Objective Investigate whether exercise-based telerehabilitation improves pain, physical function and quality of life in adults with physical disabilities. Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Data sources Searches were performed in AMED, MEDLINE, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, Embase, PEDro, Cochrane Library and PsycINFO. Eligibility criteria Trials were considered if they evaluated exercise by telerehabilitation. The population included adults with physical disability. Comparisons were control and other interventions. The outcomes were pain, physical function and quality of life. Study selection, data extraction and analysis followed the protocol registered in PROSPERO (CRD42019122824). GRADE determined the strength of evidence. Results Forty-eight trials were included in the quantitative analysis. When compared with other interventions, there was high-quality evidence that telerehabilitation was not different to other interventions for pain (95% CI: −0.4 to 0.1), physical function (95% CI: −0.2 to 0.2) and quality of life (95% CI: −0.1 to 0.5) at long-term. There was moderate-quality evidence that telerehabilitation was not different to other interventions for physical function (95% CI: −0.1 to 0.5) and quality of life (95% CI: −0.2 to 0.5) at short-term. However, due to the low-quality evidence and the small number of trials comparing exercise protocols offered by telerehabilitation with control groups, it is still not possible to state the efficacy of telerehabilitation on pain, function and quality of life at short-term and long-term. Conclusions Exercise by telerehabilitation may be an alternative to treat pain, physical function and quality of life in adults with physical disabilities when compared with other intervention.
Objective To investigate prevalence, incidence and profile of musculoskeletal injuries in para athletes. Design Systematic review. Data sources Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, SPORTSDiscus, CINAHL and hand searching. Eligibility criteria Studies were considered if they reported prevalence or incidence of musculoskeletal injuries in para athletes. Study selection, data extraction and analysis followed the protocol. Meta-analyses were conducted to estimate the prevalence and incidence rate among studies and subgroup analyses investigated whether methodological quality and sample size of the studies influenced on the estimated injury prevalence and incidence. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation system determined the strength of evidence. Results Forty-two studies were included. The prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries was 40.8% (95% CI 32.5% to 49.8%). Because of imprecision, indirectness and inconsistency, the strength of evidence was very low quality. The incidence of musculoskeletal injuries was 14.3 injuries per 1000 athlete-days (95% CI 11.9 to 16.8). The strength of evidence was low quality because of imprecision and indirectness. The subgroup analyses revealed that the sample size influenced on estimated injury prevalence and methodological quality influenced on estimated incidence. Injuries were more prevalent in the shoulder, for non-ambulant para athletes, and in the lower limbs, for ambulant para athletes. Summary/conclusion Para athletes show high prevalence and incidence of musculoskeletal injuries. Current very low-quality and low-quality evidence suggests that future high-quality studies with systematic data collection, larger sample size and specificities of para athletes are likely to change estimates of injury prevalence and incidence in para athletes. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020147982.
1 August 2018 in Musculoskeletal Science and Practice