Authors (including presenting author) :
Brigitte Fung KY(1), Kwok KL(2), Eric Chan YT(2), Debbie Tse YH(1), Cindy Chan YY(1), Susan Law WS(1), Ben Leung HY(1), Justina Lo HY(1), Ken Lam HT(1), Enoch Leung YH(1), Leung SY(2)
Affiliation :
(1)Physiotherapy Department, Kwong Wah Hospital; (2)Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Kwong Wah Hospital
Introduction :
In the era of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, hybrid mode (face-to-face & telecare) was pioneered and implemented as a new mode of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (OMT) physiotherapy service since April 2020 in paediatric patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS).
Objectives :
(1) To analyze the subjective & objective outcomes of hybrid mode OMT physiotherapy service;
(2) To evaluate patients' feedback on hybrid mode OMT physiotherapy service.
Methodology :
25 patients (male: 18; female: 7) aged 16.7+/-3.9 years old received hybrid mode OMT physiotherapy service in between April 2020 to Nov 2022. All of them received 5 treatment sessions (the first & final session: face-to-face for assessment; 2nd to 4th sessions: telecare on OMT exercise, postural & breathing re-education).
Result & Outcome :
Results:
Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was employed for statistical analysis. For subjective outcomes, there were significant reduction in score of Paediatric Sleep Questionnaire (PSQ) (p=0.008) and score of OSA-18 Quality of Life questionnaire (OSA-18) (p=0.048). For objective outcomes, there were significant improvement in tongue strength (p=0.001) and tongue endurance (p=0.005). The hybrid OMT physiotherapy service was non-inferior to the conventional mode regarding these outcome measures. 86% of the patients showed good acceptance to the telecare mode and 59% of the patients agreed that the telecare mode was comparable to face-to-face mode. The default rate of hybrid mode OMT physiotherapy service was much lower than that of the conventional mode. Exercise compliance was also improved with text message encouragement in-between sessions.
Conclusions:
The hybrid mode of paediatric OMT physiotherapy service was effective in improving tongue strength, tongue endurance and quality of life in paediatric OSAS patients. The percentage of improvement was statistically significant. Telecare mode of service was well and equally accepted by majority of the paediatric patients during the era of pandemic. The telecare mode of service could be adopted in the future.
