TELEPHONE COACHING FOR HOME EXERCISE EFFICIENCY IN CHILDREN WITH OBSTETRIC BRACHIAL PLEXUS PALSY

Objectives: Home exercise programs are widely used for the treatment of children with Obstetric Brachial Plexus Palsy (OBPP). Our objective was to investigate the effects of telephone coaching on the home exercise program’s adherence and efficiency.
Methods: Thirty-three children with OBPP and their parents were quasi-randomized into two groups; control and study groups. The parents in both the groups were informed about the OBPP, taught home exercises, given exercise diaries and regularly received face-to-face coaching with six-week intervals for 12 week period. Study group, consisting of 17 children, was called weekly for motivating to adhere exercise program and answering any questions about exercises or OBPP. Also, the study group was allowed to call the researchers at any time throughout the study. To measure telephone coaching’s effects, we used Intrinsic Motivation Inventory to assess parental motivation, an exercise diary for exercise adherence, and Gilbert and Raimondi Scores and Active Movement Scores for clinical progress.
Results: As a result of our 12-week follow-up, both groups had similar improvements in our outcome measurements. Additional weekly telephone coaching did not provide improvement to the 6-week face-to-face follow-ups in OBPP.
Discussion: In the rehabilitation of OBPP, weekly telephone coaching did not provide any significant improvements to home exercise efficiency.