Multiple Disciplines Using Rehab Technology to Achieve Impairment, Activity and Participation Goals in Neurorehabilitation 1915

At Royal Rehab’s rehabilitation centre in Sydney Australia, we have been integrating rehabilitation technology into clinical practice since 2020 and we opened our advanced technology centre in July 2022 with over 27 different rehabilitation technology systems. In this symposium we will introduce the Royal Rehab Group and our journey integrating rehabilitation technology into clinical practice. In particular we will highlight the mixed methods we have used to systematically examine how rehabilitation technologies are being integrated into clinical care to support therapy goals across neurological inpatient, outpatient and community rehabilitation services. Between July 2022 and June 2023 we interviewed 25 clinicians over 3 time points, 63 interviews, on their experiences integrating rehab tech with traditional therapy. Also since July 2022two goal types, sessional and functional, are being recorded in our usual clinical documentation for all therapy sessions utilising rehabilitation technology. To date a total of 9500 sessions were analysed for a 2-year period. These sessional and functional goals were coded using the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) framework. Early on, clinicians typically targeted impairment focused goals in therapy sessions, but this evolved over time as evidenced in increasing diversity in impairment and activity-based session goal type, for example walking or self-care related goals. We also saw more activity and participation functional goals, for example ‘walking around my local park’ and ‘using chopsticks to eat a main meal with my family’. Over time our clinicians have become more specific with their goal planning for technology integration and embraced how technologies can complement traditional therapy goal attainment. Clients and clinicians have reported over this period active participation has increased with  therapy being more individualised and meaningful through the use of goals.