Changes in neurorehabilitation management during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review

BACKGROUND: The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) has generated a threat to global health, determining the need for healthcare for large numbers of people in an extremely short time.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the management changes in the neurorehabilitation services during the COVID-19 pandemic.METHODS: An electronic search was conducted in September 2021 by 2 independent reviewers in the following databases: MEDLINE (PubMed), the Physiotherapy Evidence Database, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. All studies on organizational and welfare changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in neurorehabilitation services were included. Screening of titles, abstracts, and full texts and data extraction were undertaken independently by pairs of reviewers.RESULTS: The summary of results was reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews. Electronic searches after the screening of title and abstract identified 80 studies, 13 studies met the inclusion criteria. A narrative summary of results of all included studies were reported in a tabular format.CONCLUSIONS: Different organizational models were adopted in neurorehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic impacting the therapies time frame, the physical and mental health of healthcare professionals and the caregiver's workload. There is still uncertainty about the effectiveness of these new therapeutic strategies on the management of neurorehabilitation services and future studies should explore the effect on the patients' needs.