Telerehabilitation can train visually impaired older adults in using assistive apps
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Key takeaways:
- Ninety percent of participants demonstrated proficiency in the application.
- Ninety-six percent reported they were comfortable with training through telerehabilitation.
Telerehabilitation may be an option to train visually impaired older adults to use visual-assistive mobile applications, according to study results published in Optometry and Vision Science.
“The prevalence of low vision is increasing exponentially as the population ages, which highlights the importance of studying whether visual-assistive technologies on mobile devices can be utilized specifically by seniors,” Alexis G. Malkin, OD, FAAO, associate professor at the New England College of Optometry, and colleagues wrote.
In a multicenter study of 116 adults aged 55 years and older (mean age, 72 years; 53% women; 72% white), subjects were randomly assigned to use one of three visual-assistive mobile apps, SuperVision+, Seeing AI or Aira, on a loaner iPhone and completed one-on-one training. Afterward, they were assessed for proficiency based on their ability to use the application without assistance.
Longer initial and total training times were significantly related to increased age (P < .001), as was legal blindness (P < .007).
The median initial training time was 45 minutes, with a significantly longer training time for those using the Seeing AI app compared with the SuperVision+ app (P = .01). After initial training, 71% of participants achieved proficiency, with odds significantly higher in those who were younger (P = .04), opted for telerehabilitation (P = .03) or had higher cognitive scores (P = .04).
Total training time was a median of 60 minutes, ranging from 10 minutes to 4.25 hours. At the end of follow-up training, 90% of participants were proficient with the app, with odds significantly greater in those who already had an optical magnifier (P = .008).
Of those who were unable to demonstrate proficiency, no single task was identified as a common issue, with similar deficiency rates found for finding the app icon, opening the app, using the app for near tasks and describing features of the app.
The participants reported high satisfaction, with 96% reporting they were strongly or mostly comfortable with training through telerehabilitation, 91% strongly or mostly agreeing that telerehabilitation was as accurate as in-person training, and all participants reporting they would be interested in receiving telerehabilitation again on a new app.
“We found that some participants who were unable to see the images on the screen of the iPhone were unable to become ultimately proficient even with modifications through built-in accessibility features and with use of best near correction,” Malkin and colleagues wrote. “Thus, we suggest that it could be valuable to develop a protocol for an initial screening to determine whether a patient has sufficient vision to learn apps or can learn to utilize nonvisual accessibility features on the smartphone.”
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