Incorporating Exercise into Telerehabilitation Interventions for Adults with Chronic Low Back Pain: A Narrative Review

Telerehabilitation involves the use of information and communication technologies to provide rehabilitation care from a distance. Telerehabilitation can be a necessary and valuable means of providing rehabilitation services, especially in chronic conditions. Sufficiently detailed evidence is needed regarding how exercise can be effectively incorporated into telerehabilitation interventions for adults with chronic low back pain (CLBP). This narrative review outlines details on how and to what extent exercise is incorporated into published telerehabilitation interventions for CLBP considering the Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template (CERT) criteria. A search was conducted in EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane CENTRAL, CINAHL, Google Scholar and the reference lists of relevant studies. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of telerehabilitation interventions for adults (> 18 years) with CLBP (> 3 months duration) were included for review. Eight RCTs, utilizing various technologies, were eligible for inclusion (793 screened). Results suggest many studies lack comprehensive descriptions of the exercise components of the intervention. All interventions include some form of monitoring, and more than half included goal setting, highlighting the importance of these components. Clinicians should consider including these components alongside exercise for telerehabilitation interventions for CLBP.