NIH-Funded Project Combines Physical Therapists, Telehealth for In-Home Care

Researchers at Boston University are using a $3.2 million federal grant to study how an mHealth app can help physical therapists improve care management for people living with Parkinson’s disease.

The National Institutes of Health grant comes on the heels of a one-year pilot project in which patients using the connected health platform were 10 percent more active than  their baseline, while rebutting other studies that show a 12 percent decline in walking.

The program applies telehealth to concept of extending care management out of the doctor’s office or clinic and into the home, and it brings in physical therapists, who would greatly benefit from technology that enables them to work remotely.

“What I hope is that we can change standard practice so that patients with Parkinson’s, when they’re diagnosed, are routinely sent to a physical therapist - and they see them every six months, just like their neurologist,” Terry Ellis, an associate professor at BU’s Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences and director of the Center for Neurorehabilitation, said in a story published by BU.

“Exercise is a powerful, effective treatment - and underutilized,” she added. “We just need the data to drive policy change.”

The program begins with in-person sessions between a patient and therapist, who creates a personalized care plan that the patient can follow at home. Using an mHealth app, the therapist can add videos and other resources, communicate with the patient and modify the routine based on information from the patient or new goals.

The platform also uses cognitive behavioral therapy. Patients fill out online questionnaires designed by Dan Fulford, a psychologist and assistant professor of occupational therapy at Sargent College. The questionnaires help the patients identify goals – both short- and long-term – and enable care providers to work on motivational techniques to help those patients stick to their exercise routines.

 “The goal is to help people identify thoughts that might interfere with their walking or other exercises,” Fulford said.

“It’s the cognitive behavioral piece that we think is kind of the secret sauce for our patients who struggle the most,” added Ellis.

The new program will track roughly 200 patients.