Telerehabilitation for OIF/OEF Returnees With Combat-Related Traumatic Brain Injury

Rational: TBI can cause life-long impairments in physical, cognitive, behavioral and social function that are usually more disabling than the residual physical deficits. Recovery can continue many years after initial trauma. Little is known about optimal methodologies to treat the vast and complicated secondary manifestations of combat related TBI. Applicability: The goal of this rehabilitation program is eventually to optimally define telerehabilitation services for all Veterans with polytrauma, including accurate and efficient screening instruments, educational material for patients and families, family support, and family counseling to enhance care coordination and to maximize functional outcomes and quality of life.

Patient population: The program will help wounded Veterans with a diagnosis of TBI from combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Veterans reside in rural and underserved areas. Although access to health care for rural patients remains a critical challenge, telerehabilitation may represent a viable means for the delivery of therapeutic services to such patients, particularly those served by the VA. The program has implications for civilian populations as well including those injured in automobile or industrial accidents and similar in illness to the cohort of Veterans the investigators intend to follow.

Clinical applications, benefits and risks: The goals of the rehabilitation project will be to enhance the wounded Veteran's capacity to process and interpret information and to improve his ability to function in all aspects of family and community life. It will involve a combination of restorative training which focuses on improving a specific cognitive function and compensatory training which educates Veterans on adapting to the presence of a cognitive deficit that may or may not be curable using singular one to one interventions as well as integrated interdisciplinary approaches to target multiple conditions. The investigators see no risks involved in this clinical intervention.

Projected time to achieve a consumer-related outcome: The results of the telerehabilitation project should immediately be available for dissemination throughout the VA. The VA has already committed itself to a nationwide rollout of similar telerehabilitation projects for wounded Veterans. Hence, the findings should have immediate application in VA care for returnees from combat.

The investigators recently added MyHealtheVet to the TeleRehab I care coordination for existing TeleRehab I subjects. MyHealtheVet is the VA's Personal Health Record and offers Veterans an additional way for Veterans to partner with the health care team in making informed decisions. MyHealtheVet is an existing, innovative program available to Veterans throughout the VA. (see https://www.myhealth.va.gov/index.html for additional information) Most of the remaining TeleRehabilitation Veterans are already enrolled in the MyHealtheVet program. Besides giving patients access to their health records and online prescription ordering, there is a secure messaging system with VA providers, who can save the secure message into the patient's electronic medical record (CPRS) with a single click.

A total of 75 of the 85 IRB-approved subjects were initially enrolled. The investigators wanted to enroll up to 10 new subjects, and the existing TeleRehab I subjects were all be asked to sign a revised ICF that adds MyHealtheVet to the study, and makes other changes to the ICF required by Tampa VA R\&D. If the subjects consent they will be required to register and be authenticated to use MyHealtheVet in order to participate or continue to participate in the study. An additional 6 subjects were enrolled for a total of 81 subjects on whom demographic data was collected. Sufficient data was collected on 75 subject for analyses of their responses to surveys.

MyHealtheVet enrollment and secure messaging authentication is required to continue in the study, and changes to the protocol will reflect this additional eligibility criterion. All other methods of communication with subjects and existing surveys will continue. Eventually MyHealtheVet will replace the LAMP for secure communications with the Care Coordinator.