Introduction: Geographical barriers and impaired physical mobility among people with Parkinson's disease (PD) hinder their timely access to speech pathology services. We compared the costs of delivering a speech treatment via in-person consultation versus telerehabilitation.
Methods: We used data from a non-inferiority randomised controlled trial delivering the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT LOUD®), where patients with dysarthria associated with PD were assigned to either the urban in-person group (N = 16) or the urban online group (N = 15), supplemented with a non-randomised group (regional online; N = 21). We compared costs over a one-month treatment period from a health-system perspective and a patient perspective.
Results: The mean treatment costs of both urban online ($1076) and regional ($1206) treatments tended to be slightly higher than urban in-person ($1020) from a health-system perspective. From a patient perspective, the mean treatment cost was $831 in the urban in-person group, $247 in the urban online group and $200 in the regional group.
Discussion: LSVT LOUD® may be delivered via telerehabilitation at a slightly higher cost than in-person delivery from a health-system perspective, but it is cost saving from a patient perspective. Telerehabilitation is an economically beneficial alternative for the delivery of the LSVT LOUD® programme in PD patients with speech disorders.
Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; Telerehabilitation; cost; speech pathology; telemedicine.