Speech and language teletherapy services during the COVID-19 pandemic : A national survey

Research Objectives: To characterize the Covid-19 experience and telerehabilitation access, service delivery experiences, and perceived effectiveness in a national cohort of adults with aphasia.

Design: Online Survey.

Setting: Distributed nationally in early 2021 through aphasia centers, university clinics, and social media.

Participants: Individuals with aphasia.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: The survey included questions related to demographics, knowledge and attitudes about the coronavirus, healthcare experiences including telehealth/ telerehabilitation immediately before and during the pandemic, familiarity with technology, physical and mental health during the pandemic, and life changes in regards to access to family and friends, routines, and family income/employment.

Results: A sample of 440 respondents with aphasia met eligibility criteria. 60% of respondents indicated that they felt nervous or stressed because of the coronavirus some of the time, and 18.5% most or all of the time. 80% of respondents indicated that the coronavirus pandemic had changed their access to healthcare. 47.6% of respondents indicated that they had missed or canceled a medical appointments because they were worried about getting the coronavirus. Of the 272 participants who were actively receiving some form of speech and language therapy, 70.5% indicated that they had an individual appointment with a speech language pathologist via telerehabilitation since the coronavirus pandemic began. The majority of respondents indicated that the telerehabilitation appointment was the same or better than traditional in-person speech and language therapy.

Conclusions: Respondents who perceived that they were at high risk of Covid-19 infection and death were more likely to accept telerehabilitation services than patients who perceived themselves at low risk. Utilization of telerehabilitation services varied by household access to high speed internet and familiarity with information technology resources.

Author(s) Disclosures: Supported by Grant #DC017174-02S1
Authors have no conflicts.