Abstract
Background/Objectives: Telehealth through videoconferencing has the potential to improve the lives of the elderly. Unfortunately, little is known on its health benefits in the physical and quality of life dimensions among seniors. The aim of this paper is to compare videoconferencing as a mode of telehealth with traditional healthcare delivery in the contexts of functional independence and Quality of Life (QoL) measures using a non-equivalent control group before-after quasi experimental design. Methods/Statistical analysis: One-hundred forty seniors from a rural area were purposively selected and distributed to the telehealth (n=82) and traditional (n=58) groups. SF-8 and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) were used to gather the needed data from the participants before and after exposure to the interventions. Findings: Results of t-tests indicate significant improvement in QoL of the two groups of subjects on both telehealth and traditional groups, while FIM measures exhibited no significant change among the telehealth group. Improvements/Applications: On the whole, study findings promote a more personal delivery of healthcare among the elderly, and challenges the health practitioners and policy makers to recognize the pragmatic worth of and improve telehealth as a complementary healthcare tool for traditional consultation in enhancing QoL among seniors. Impliedly, more researches with extended number of subjects and locale is needed to come up with a more generalizable result.
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