Systematic Review of Mobile Health Applications in Rehabilitation

To conduct systematic review to better define how medical mobile applications (apps) have been used in environments relevant to physical medicine and rehabilitation.

PUBMED, IEEE, ACM Digital Library, SCOPUS, INSPEC, and EMBASE.

A 10-year date limit was used, spanning publication dates from June 1, 2006, to June 30, 2016. Terms related to physical medicine and rehabilitation as well as mobile apps were used in 10 individual search strategies.

Two investigators screened abstracts and applied inclusion and exclusion criteria. Full-length articles were retrieved. Duplicate articles were removed. If a study met all criteria, the article was reviewed in full.

Specific variables of interest were extracted and added to summary tables. Summary tables were used to categorize studies according themes, and a list of app features was generated.

The search yielded abstracts from 8116 studies, and 102 studies were included in the systematic review. Approximately one-third of the studies evaluated apps as interventions, and the remaining two-thirds of the studies assessed functioning of the app or participant interaction with the app. Some apps may have positive benefits when used to deliver exercise or gait training interventions, as self-management systems, or as measurement tools.

The protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) network (no. CRD42016046672).