Comparison of Blended Care Outpatient Neurorehabilitation With Traditional Outpatient Neurorehabilitation, a Crossover Pilot Study

What is this study about? Outpatient neurorehabilitation (therapy after leaving the hospital) is an important follow-up treatment for people who have had a stroke, brain bleeding, or serious head injury. It helps improve problems with movement, speech, memory, or daily activities.

At the same time, there are not enough healthcare professionals, and healthcare costs are rising. Because of this, we need new and more efficient ways to provide therapy.

One possible solution is telerehabilitation. This means patients do part of their therapy at home using video calls and apps. Early studies show that this can work well. However, in Switzerland it is still rarely used. One reason is that digital therapies are often not paid for, and there is still limited scientific proof of how effective they are.

In this study, the investigators want to find out how well a combination of traditional in-person therapy and digital therapy at home works. The goal is to make treatment more modern, effective, and affordable - benefiting patients, therapists, and the healthcare system.

How is the study organized?

Participants in the study are randomly divided into two groups.

Group 1:

First, participants have three weeks of combined therapy:

1. therapy day per week at the hospital.
2. therapy days per week at home via Microsoft Teams video calls. On home days, participants also complete exercises using apps provided by their therapists.

After that, participants have three weeks of therapy fully at the hospital (3 days per week).

Group 2:

First, participants have three weeks of therapy at the hospital (3 days per week).

After that, participants have three weeks of combined therapy (hospital + home video therapy).

Both groups receive the same types of therapy, just in a different order. This is called a crossover design.

Because this is one of the first studies of its kind, the investigators are starting with a small number of participants. This is called a pilot study.