SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
This article is part of the Research TopicNovel Rehabilitation Approaches for Non-Communicable Diseases in the Era of Precision MedicineView all 11 articles
Effectiveness of Telemedicine-Delivered Exercise Interventions in Elderly Patients with Osteoarthritis:A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- China University of Petroleum, Beijing, Beijing, China
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Background: Remote rehabilitation treatment delivered via the Internet may serve as an effective approach for managing osteoarthritis (OA). One of its primary advantages is that patients can conveniently access rehabilitation services at any time and from any location. However, there remains a lack of reliable and up-to-date systematic reviews and meta-analyses to confirm the effectiveness of this therapy in improving clinical outcomes for elderly patients. Purpose: Our study aims to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the available evidence regarding the effectiveness of telerehabilitation in elderly patients with OA. Method: A systematic search was performed in the Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane databases, and Embase from their inception up to August 2025. Trials focusing on the effects of telerehabilitation for elderly individuals suffering from OA were included. Two reviewers, working independently, carried out the selection of studies and the extraction of data. The assessment of bias risk utilized the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Results: We selected 13 randomized clinical trials, which included a total of 1,845 participants. Overall quality of the included studies was rated as moderate-to-high quality. Our findings indicate that telerehabilitation effectively alleviates pain (standardized mean difference, SMD: 0.40, 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.11 to 0.69, I² = 88.3%), enhances physical function (SMD: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.16 to 1.05, I² = 91.5%), and improves the quality of life (SMD: 0.42, 95% CI: 0.07 to 0.77, I² = 90.1%) in elderly individuals suffering from OA. The subgroup analysis results showed that remote exercise interventions based on APP, mobile phones, and web platforms were all effective in improving the pain levels of elderly patients with OA, and interventions with a duration of more than three months significantly enhanced the improvement in pain. Conclusion: Remote exercise rehabilitation interventions have been shown to effectively alleviate pain, improve quality of life, and enhance physical function in elderly individuals with OA. This approach offers a viable alternative to traditional face-to-face exercise rehabilitation for elderly patients suffering from OA.
Keywords: Osteoarthritis, Meta-analysis, Elderly, Telemedicine, Systematic review
Received: 07 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhu, Jiang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yue-shuai Jiang, jiangyueshuai@cup.edu.cn
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