Abstract:

Cerebro-vascular diseases represent a serious problem of public health worldwide due to the high prevalence and disabling consequences. In our country, the need of rehabilitation in patients with post-stroke hemiparesis is relatively high, therefore we prepared an online course on the topic “Neurorehabilitation (NR) in post-stroke hemiparesis”.

The GOAL of current study was to prepare an online long-life learning (LLL) educational course on the topic “NR in post-stroke hemiparesis” and to evaluate the efficacy of this course on professional competencies of different members of the NR-team.

Material and methods:
We prepare the LLL-course for medical doctors – residents in “Physical and Rehabilitation medicine (PRM)”, for physiotherapists and for nurses - working with this type of patients: in hospitals for active care, in hospitals for long-time care and rehabilitation, and in rehabilitation hospitals and medical centers. We prepared our presentations for the course and materials for the learners (including an electronic monograph). We effectuated the course several times: for our PRM-trainees, for students in Physiotherapy and in Nursing (Bachelor’s degree), and for working members of the NR-team (PRM-medical doctors, specialists in PRM, physiotherapists and nurses of the PRM-wards, occupied with hemiplegics). Participants in the courses received the electronic materials via e-mail (free-of-charge). At the end of every educational course, we realized an examination of the learners – aiming to evaluate the impact of the course on their theoretical knowledge and practical skills. After the end of the exams, but before the information of participants for their results, we realized an anonymous survey for analysis of the learners’ opinion of the course.

Results:
We will present the results of the exams of a total of 121 participants and an analysis of 117 fully-fulfilled questionnaires. We obtained positive impact of the electronic courses on learners’ professional competencies, especially on their theoretical knowledge. We are pleased of the participants’ opinions on the courses and educational materials, especially of the electronic book on the topic “NR in post-stroke hemiparesis”.

Conclusion:
We consider that current educational course is important due to the important number of hemiparetic patients in the neurorehabilitation practice in our country.

Keywords:

Education, online course, neurorehabilitation, post-stroke hemiparesis.