The current COVID-19 pandemic forced to restrict face-to-face physiotherapy care. Telerehabilitation (TR) has been shown to be effective and safe in different areas, however, in the pelvic floor setting it is still limited. The aim of this study is to report the experience of  pelvic floor specialist physiotherapists in treating people with pelvic floor dysfunctions remotely during the pandemic between May and September 2020 in Chile.

A quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted.  Specialist physiotherapists were invited to respond to an online survey (using Google Forms), considering for the analysis those who had performed at least 20 RT attentions, collecting information on the experience and perception of working in this modality in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were tabulated and analyzed with descriptive statistics.
The study followed the indications of the "International Ethical Guidelines for Health-Related Research Involving Human Subjects" (PAHO/CIOMS, 2016) and was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of our  University   in December 2020

We received 190 responses of which 53 met the inclusion criteria. 
TR was performed in different diagnoses, the most frequent and with the best result being urinary incontinence (see graph 1). 
Different facilitators and advantages as well as barriers and disadvantages were reported, both for physical therapists and patients. The vast majority of physical therapists considered that telerehabilitation limits the therapeutic tools used, however, it allowed them to continue working and most agree that this modality does not affect the patient/physiotherapist relationship. Most of the participants (98.7%) agreed or strongly agreed that this modality facilitates access to rehabilitation and shortens distances, which allows for continuity of treatment and timely care. A high percentage (85%) also considered that remote care gave more autonomy to the patient. Among the barriers or disadvantages, the technological gap and body proprioception problems stand out in the first place (see Table 1).

According to reports in the literature, beneficial effects have been demonstrated in urinary incontinence using telerehabilitation tools. This study allows us to approach, more than the results of the intervention, the therapeutic experience of the professionals to a health reality that has arrived abruptly and for which we were not prepared and that presents positive and negative aspects. The main positive aspect is the possibility of giving continuity to physiotherapy care even in contexts of social isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the same time, the possibility of giving access to care by specialist physiotherapists to people living in isolated areas where it is very difficult to count on this type of intervention.

The reported experience shows that telerehabilitation is an area of potential development in the specialty of pelvic floor reeducation. Future studies should consider patient perspectives and cost/benefit estimates of telerehabilitation interventions.