A Review of Current and Future Technology for Telerehabilitation

Telecommunications technologies spanning a wide range of functionality and cost offer valuable resources for supporting independent living and rehabilitation services. In this article, we review the technology that is used today and explore some potential directions for telerehabilitation. Because telemedicine and telerehabilitation are often closely associated with interactive videoconferencing, we include a discussion of videoconferencing options. However, with the convergence of voice, video, and data in the telecommunications industry, networking benefits go far beyond videoconferencing and point-to-point communications. Although some health care applications may demand greater network performance than can be supported on the Internet today, the federal government's Next Generation Internet Initiative is addressing many of these limitations. This article includes a brief discussion on what the Next Generation Internet can bring to telerehabilitation.