Adoption of stroke rehabilitation technologies by the user community

Background
Using technology in stroke rehabilitation is attractive. Devices from robots to smart phone apps can help deliver evidence-based levels of practice intensity and automated feedback without additional labour costs. Currently, however, few technologies are adopted into everyday rehabilitation. This project aimed to identify priorities for users (therapists/patients and carers) and generate user centred solutions to enhance adoption.
Method
Stakeholders (n=60), including stroke survivors (33%), therapists (33%), carers, technologists and researchers, were invited to attend three workshops facilitated by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute. Workshop 1 was preceded by a survey of stroke survivors and therapists (n=177) to generate an initial list of priorities. Subsequent workshops focussed on generating practical solutions to enhance adoption.
Results
Twenty-four priorities, generated from the survey, were reduced to ten, non-ranked, priorities through discussion, consensus activities and voting at workshop 1. These were: access to technologies, ease of use, awareness of available technologies, technologies focussed on function, supports self-management, user training, evidence of effectiveness, value for money, knowledgeable staff and performance/progress feedback. Follow-up workshops provided the following recommendations: an annual exhibition of commercially available and developing technologies, an online consumer-rating website of available technologies and a user network to inspire and test new technologies.
Discussion
The key outcomes from this series of stakeholder workshops provides a starting point for a unified approach to promoting greater integration of technologies in the stroke rehabilitation. Bringing technology developers and users together to shape future and evaluate current technologies is critical to achieving evidence based stroke rehabilitation.