PERCEPTIONS OF INDIVIDUALS WITH PARKINSON DISEASE REGARDING A TELEREHABILITATION PROTOCOL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changes were necessary in the field of physiotherapy, requiring new models of care that could be promoted by telerehabilitation. Therefore, a group of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD), who before the pandemic performed face-to-face physical therapy, had their way of treatment replaced by a telerehabilitation program consisting of synchronous remote sessions of physical therapy, provision of graphic material and videos about physical and cognitive exercises and health education activities. To understand the meaning of the experience of individuals living with PD regarding a telerehabilitation protocol. This is a qualitative descriptive analytical study with a phenomenological basis in which 20 individuals with PD who participated in a telerehabilitation protocol for 6 months were included. They were interviewed by telephone calls recorded, guided by a semi-structured script. The interviews were transcribed, categorized, and analyzed, based on the principles of phenomenology following assumptions by Martins and Bicudo (1989). Data analysis was performed in the following stages: transcripts reading; division of the whole transcripts into units of meaning and interpretation; grouping units of meaning in units themes; interpretative synthesis regarding the content of the themes generated by the grouped units of meaning. From the qualitative analysis, four themes emerged that configure the structure of the phenomenon: 1) Expectations related to physiotherapy through telerehabilitation during the pandemic (includes feelings and thoughts about the expectations related to the beginning of remote physiotherapy after interruption of face-to-face treatment); 2) Experiences of the new daily life (includes the perceptions about the experiences of the new daily life that was configured from the proposed protocol, including the relationship with technology, the perceived changes and the new learnings); 3) Perceptions about themselves in relation to the proposed telerehabilitation program (includes participants' perceptions of themselves during their immersion in the telerehabilitation program); 4) A look at the protocol (includes the opinions and feelings about the protocol and preferences of the participants in relation to the approach modalities). Apprehension and fear were present in the implementation of the protocol, however, the previous experience with face-to-face physiotherapy and the team allowed feelings of happiness, cont