Index IntroductionWe help eHealth solutionsIntroduction to telerehabilitationObstaclesThe future, what's nextIntroduction A stroke is a neurological condition in which the blood supply to the brain is interrupted resulting in cell death. Strokes can be divided into ischemic strokes and hemorrhagic strokes. Depending on the area affected, the symptoms of a stroke and the resulting problems may vary. Complications may include hemiparesis, spasticity, pain, behavioral changes, cognitive impairment, and fatigue. Strokes are more common among men, and women are usually almost five years older than men when they have their first stroke. Finland has a low stroke mortality rate due to the excellent management of stroke patients in the acute setting. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In 2015, 36,500 strokes occurred in Finland and 4,866 people died from stroke. Stroke-related healthcare costs were approximately 721.1 million euros. As rehabilitation of stroke patients remains a costly endeavor, alternative, cheaper and more effective treatment strategies are needed to improve healthcare at the same time as the evolution of increasing eHealth. Many new innovations are created that can improve and advance healthcare. This generates curiosity about whether eHealth solutions could be useful as a permanent and cost-effective integrated part of rehabilitation. Helping eHealth Solutions One treatment challenge for stroke patients that has been noted in the literature is that medication adherence in stroke patients is poor. The reasons include the patient's lack of motivation, knowledge and memory. A study by Kamal et al. (2015) found a way to remind the stroke patient to take medications on time and simultaneously reduce costs. One eHealth solution to address this problem has been the introduction of automatic short text messages to patients' phones when it is time to take their medications. Additionally, the patient must confirm that they have taken the medications by replying to the message. If no response is sent, the patient will receive a phone call asking whether or not they have taken their medications. eHealth has also helped improve patient self-management. Examples include UbiCare SmarteXp technology. It is a stroke recovery engagement solution that connects hospitals and other healthcare providers to the stroke patient and healthcare providers through an interactive platform. This program has been shown to improve the quality of care and has enabled secondary prevention of a second stroke. With this technology, the patient receives targeted educational and health messages via a mobile device. Research on this software has shown that 90% of patients feel more connected to their treatment and 86% report being able to better manage their care. An already implemented part of the telehealth concept is the use of telemedicine in stroke care. Telemedicine allows experts at stroke centers or teaching hospitals to participate in the care of a stroke patient at another hospital without themselves physically evaluating the patient. This can ensure that the patient is provided with high-quality care, regardless of whether or not the treating hospital has the best expertise in the field. Telestroke is a Finnish example of this type of service that uses telemedicine to help general hospitals and therefore improves patient managementaffected by acute stroke. What is a similar solution that could be implemented in the rehabilitation of stroke patients? Introducing TelerehabilitationTelerehabilitation uses information and communication technologies, such as Internet-based video conferencing, telephones, and sensors, as a means of interaction between the doctor and the patient. The collected data can then be analyzed by healthcare professionals without the need for physical contact between the parties. The study by Peretti et al. (2017) conclude that telerehabilitation as a rehabilitation method can reduce healthcare costs, both for patients and healthcare professionals. The study further highlights the importance of providing professionals with adequate training. One of the great advantages of telerehabilitation is the ability for the patient and healthcare professionals to maintain contact without having to be geographically close to each other, as well as allowing patients to be at home and still receive continuous rehabilitation. However, some patients may be skeptical about remote interaction. Safro and colleagues (2018) conclude that some parts of therapy may require face-to-face interactions, such as physical therapy assessments. However, they also argue that telerehabilitation, when compared to conventional in-clinic therapy, may be more cost-effective and have greater or equal health effects on higher cortical, motor, and mood disorders. Virtual reality (VR), a fairly well-established form of therapy for patients with phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder, can be an integral part of telerehabilitation. Significant improvements in the Timed Up and Go Test, balance, and performance of basic activities of daily living can be achieved with VR training compared to conventional therapy alone. However, it does not appear to show significant results compared to conventional therapy. One of the main advantages of virtual reality is that it allows the person to train functions and situations that could otherwise be dangerous. For example, car driving training. It may also allow the ability to increase the dosage of therapy without increasing staffing levels. Virtual reality may, however, increase the patient's muscle tone and should therefore be used with additional spasticity monitoring. Gesture therapy is a form of telerehabilitation that allows patients to practice physiotherapy without the presence of a doctor. Gesture therapy has a computer vision-based system in which a stroke patient can practice arm movement exercises at home or in the clinic. The system provides a virtual environment to facilitate movement training by monitoring the patient's hand. The system is equipped with a handgrip pressure sensor to include hand and finger rehabilitation. The program can also track the patient's head to detect trunk compensation. It remains of great value to the progress of rehabilitation as patients have been shown to be more motivated through gesture therapy and has contributed to the success of rehabilitation. Obstacles The computerized form of rehabilitation can be too difficult to understand when dealing with a neurological condition. Many brain injuries result in impairments in an individual's ability to plan, organize, control impulses, concentrate, and recall information; doing rehabilitation using electronic devices can be a disturbing element for some patients. Unexpected changes, such as computer crashes or interruptions to software services, can overwhelm a patient who already experiences difficulty with changes.