AUTHOR=Zheng Jiaqi , Hou Meijin , Liu Lu , Wang Xiangbin 

TITLE=Knowledge Structure and Emerging Trends of Telerehabilitation in Recent 20 Years: A Bibliometric Analysis via CiteSpace

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.904855

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.904855

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=Purpose: Telerehabilitation, as a means of therapeutic effect is not inferior to traditional rehabilitation, solves the problem that many patients do not have access to hospital-based training due to costs and distance. So far, knowledge structure of the global use of telerehabilitation has not been formed. This study aimed to demonstrate the state of emerging trends and frontiers concerning the studies of telerehabilitation through bibliometric software.
Methods: Literature about telerehabilitation from 2000 to 2021 was retrieved from Web of Science Core Collection. We used CiteSpace 5.8.R3 to analyze publication years, journals/cited journals, countries, institutions, authors /cited authors, references, and keywords. Based on the analysis results, we plotted the co-citation map to more intuitively observe the research hotspots and knowledge structure.
Results: A total of 1986 records were obtained. The number of annual publications gradually increased over the investigated period, the largest increase occurred between 2019 and 2020. J TELEMED TELECARE was the most prolific journal (101) and was the most cited journal (997). The USA was the most influential country, with the highest number of publications (663) and centrality (0.4). And the University of Queensland (99) was the most productive institution. The author Tousignant M (27) ranked the highest in the number of publications and Russell TG (274) ranked the first in the cited authors. Respectively, the articles published by Cottrell MA (82) and Russell TG (0.18) ranked the first in the frequency and centrality of cited references. The four hot topics in telerehabilitation were “care”, “stroke”, “telemedicine” and “exercise”. The keyword “stroke” showed the strongest citation burst of 10.7. The two frontier keywords were “physical therapy” and “participation”. Key words were clustered to form 21 labels.
Conclusion: This study uses visualization software CiteSpace to provide current status and trends in clinical research of telerehabilitation over the past twenty years, which may help researchers identify new perspectives concerning potential collaborators and cooperative institutions, hot topics, and research frontiers in the research field. Bibliometric analysis of telerehabilitation supplements and improves the knowledge field of telemedicine from the concept of rehabilitation medicine and provides new insights into therapists during the COVID-19 pandemic.