Recreation therapy in the time of Covid-19, a multi-faceted rapid knowledge synthesis on the implications and opportunities of telehealth for recreation therapy practice

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many challenges for people accessing basic Human Rights in life and leisure. With repeated lockdowns and many individuals choosing social isolation to reduce the risk of infection, this has left a large proportion of clients cut off from their family, friends, and health care providers. Through embracing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as part of Recreation Therapy (RT) practice, a greater quality of care can be achieved by improving access, flexibility and functionality of services. This presentation will discuss the findings of a rapid review of the literature to understand what ICT current practices are beneficial. In addition the results from a small cohort who participated in an ICT activity during COVID-19, will be showcased to share real life examples of recreation therapy in practice. This aims at providing an indication of how ICT's can be successfully integrated into an evidenced based RT program. The rapid review of the use of ICT's in RT found that globally there has been a gradual increase in the uptake of ICT's as part of practice. While the literature provides some good insights into how Recreation Therapists can incorporate ICT's as part of their practice, the literature also gave some indication on how clients, carers and their families were engaging with ICT's to access RT. However, the quantity of the available literature was not surprisingly sparce, suggesting a need for future targeted research on this topic. The RT program shown in this presentation was conducted mostly through ICT's during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program used ICT's such as Zoom, Skype and telephone calls for individual therapy sessions. The participants achieved measurable improvements in their health and wellbeing suggesting that ICT's can be a valuable addition for a Recreation Therapists tool kit. This presentation will focus on the; ICT's used for the program, the barriers encountered during the program, and the strategies used to overcome the barriers. This will allow RT program developers to integrate the lessons learnt from this experience into future RT programs. From the results of this article a greater understanding of how ICT's may be utilised as part of RT practice within Australia can be developed. This enables Recreation Therapists, Education providers and Managers to identify key skills required to implement a successful therapy program and embraces technology as part of practice to improve the health and wellbeing of participants.