American Telemedicine Association (ATA) asks Medicare to pay for telehealth services given by physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech

In a letter sent to Dr. Donald M. Berwick Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the American Telemedicine Association wants Medicare to waive the restrictions on telehealth payments so that telehealth services http://bit.ly/iC4pwm . This will mean that tele-medicine and telerehabilitation can be treated like any other form of care. As Administrator, Dr. Berwick oversees the Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Together, these programs provide care to nearly one in three Americans.
An important change will be the removal of Medicare restrictions on paying physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists for telehealth services. The ATA contends that lifting this and the location-based prohibition would open up home-based telerehabilitation, which the group called "an important service for beneficiaries from whom going to therapy is a major barrier."

In the March issue of Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation http://bit.ly/h03MW7 Dr. Gregory and his team from Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA compare patient preferences for Stroke Rehabilitation. The group conclude that patients prefer the initial rehabilitation therapy setting to be at home. Providers should inquire about patient preference and provide information about treatment options to help inform decision making.
The group also state that early aggressive rehabilitation therapies maximize functional recovery.
The HandTutor, ArmTutor and LegTutor systems provide the patient with user friendly upper and lower extremity dedicated rehabilitation devices that allow for intensive exercise practice and maximize functional recovery both in acute, sub acute, outpatient and home care settings.

HandTutor system allows for hands on therapy through tele-rehabilitation

In the February issue of Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine http://bit.ly/ev4mth Dr. Nancye M. Peel and her group from Centre for Research in Geriatric Medicine The University of Queensland discuss the implementation of telerehabilitation in older people. The barriers that need to be overcome include patient limitations, staff issues and the logistics of implementing the system. They comment that tele-rehabilitation is challenging because of the complexity of cases, with many requiring “hands-on” therapy.
The HandTutor system uses dedicated rehabilitation software that allows the virtual functional exercise tasks to be tailored to the patients movement ability. The tasks have been designed by physical and occupational therapists and are motivating to a wide range of patients sensory, motor and cognitive ability age and neurological or orthopedic indications.