PEDIATRIC REHABILITATION SERVICES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

M. Al-Jarrah¹, S. Mysore¹, A. Zeghan², A. Oudeh³, B. Al Qerem⁴, A. Al Humaidan⁵, D. Djuric⁶

¹Fatima College of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy Department, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, ²Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Amman, Jordan. ZHO Abu Dhabi, Physiotherapy Department, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, ³Star Key Health, Physiotherapy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, ⁴Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination, Physiotherapy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, ⁵Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination, Physiotherapy Department, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, ⁶Fatima College of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has changed rehabilitation practice across the globe. A sudden transition from in-person therapy at the center to remote therapy challenged the managers and multi-disciplinary team members providing pediatric rehabilitation.

Purpose: The main objective of this research was to assess the provision of services for children with disabilities during COVID 19 in the UAE.

Methods: Two surveys were developed by the research team, one for the center managers and the others for multidisciplinary team members. Both surveys were validated through experts followed by a pilot study. The final versions of the survey were sent to all the pediatric rehabilitation centers within the United Arab Emirates in September 2020. A total of 44 managers and 434 multidisciplinary team members completed the survey

Results: The accessibility of the pediatric rehabilitation services was reported to be very high with 77 %. Regarding the cost for running the services almost half 46 % of managers reported to be costlier than the normal. Telerehabilitation was the most common approach utilized with synchronized live video calls (86 %), You tube video clips (88%) and created own video (65%).

Conclusions: Telerehabilitation appeared to be the most efficient model used for paediatric rehabilitation during the pandemic. The future investments for the continued use of telerehabilitation require planning, budgeting, investing and creating supportive environments for parents, children and multidisciplinary team members. There is a need for sharing platforms for educational and therapeutic resources created during the pandemic with ongoing research on telerehabilitation

Implications: Implications include stategies how to keep the physiotherapy sessions running for kids in case they won't be able to access the rehabilitation centers

Funding acknowledgements: This project was financially supported by FCHS and ZHO

Keywords:
COVID-19
Pediatric Rehabilitation
Telerehabilitation

Topics:
COVID-19
Paediatrics

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Fatima College of Health Sciences

Committee: Dr. Ahmad Saifan, Dr. Simon Young, and Dr. Ibraheem Bashayreh

Ethics number: INTSTF013PHY20)