Speaker Biography

Bashir Bello

Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, College of Health Science, Bayero University Kano.

Title: Effectiveness of telerehabilitation via phone calls and SMS in a rural community in kano Nigeria: a feasibility study

Bashir Bello
Biography:

Dr Bashir Bello has expertise in evaluation and passion in improving the health and wellbeing. His open and contextual evaluation model based on responsive constructivists creates new pathways for improving healthcare. He has built this model after years of experience in research, evaluation, teaching and administration  both in hospital and education institutions. Dr Bashir Bello’s research area is focused on the development, classification and management of spinal pain disorders, and motor control issues relating to Spinal problems. My research expertise investigates back pain and altered motor control from a multidimensional bio-psycho-social perspective. More specifically my research investigates the complex combination of factors (physical, lifestyle, cognitive, psychological, social, neuro-physiological, and genetics) associated with back pain in specific populations (eg. rural dwellers), sporting populations, and in adolescents.

 

Abstract:

Background: Therapeutic compliance has been a topic of clinical concern with therapy and rehabilitation programs especially in rural areas where patients can hardly afford frequent hospital visits nor bear the cost of frequent hospital bills.It can be proposed that delivery of treatment and rehabilitation via mobile phones can help improve therapeutic outcomes. Objective: This study therefore aimed to evaluate the clinical outcome of a telerehabilitation program for individuals with non-specific low back pain living in Gezawa local government of Kano state, Nigeria. Methodology: A pretest-posttest design was used for the study. Sixty five individuals diagnosed with non-specific low back pain where recruited from Gezawa local government following a health enlightenment campaign carried out by the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy (NSP - Kano State Chapter). Back care education including ergonomic, postural advise and back stergthening exercises were given to the participants. Follow -ups via phone calls and sms were made twice in a week for 8 weeks for each participants.Visual analogue scale VAS (Hausa version)and Oswestry disability index (ODI - Hausa version) were used to measure their pain intensity and functional disability levels respectively. Results: Fifty-five participants with mean age of 63.6 years completed the study.There was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of variables measured p<0.05. Conclusion:Telerehabilitation is a feasible and effective means of managing individuals with non-specific low back pain living in a rural area of Nigeria.