A Variation of Observation-to-imitate Plus Practice Intervention to Decrease Latency to Exercise Initiation and...

Some patients referred to physical therapy demonstrate deficits in initiation and completion of physical therapy exercises during appointments. These challenges may create a barrier to benefitting from therapy. We evaluated the effect of observation-to-imitate plus practice (OTI + PP) on decreasing latency to exercise initiation and increasing exercise completion for 2 participants referred for inpatient rehabilitation physical therapy.

We used an AB multiple-baseline single-case research design to compare the OTI + PP intervention to each participant's baseline condition for their latency to exercise initiation and completion.

Visual inspection indicates some improvement for 1 of the 2 participants to produce more consistent responding during OTI + PP, but there is an insufficient demonstration of a functional relation due to the small number of participants and lack of effect using visual analysis. The percentage of all nonoverlapping data indicates moderate to large effect sizes of OTI + PP to decrease latency to exercise initiation and increase completion.

It is possible that OTI + PP could decrease latency to exercise initiation and increase completion, but individual variability, insufficient replication, and the small number of participants could limit conclusions and should be considered.