Effectiveness of telerehabilitation on upper limb functionality in women after breast cancer treatment: A systematic review of randomized clinical trials.

Authors

Taynara Louisi Pilger, Franklin Fernandes Pimentel, Francisco José Candido Dos Reis

Published in

Journal of telemedicine and telecare. Pages 1357633X261469958. Jul 23, 2026. Epub Jul 23, 2026.

Abstract

IntroductionTo systematically evaluate the effectiveness of telerehabilitation on upper limb functional disability, muscle strength, and range of motion among women treated for breast cancer.MethodsPubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and EMBASE were searched for articles published up to April 2026. Randomized controlled trials evaluating telerehabilitation interventions for upper limb dysfunction following breast cancer treatment were included. Two reviewers independently performed data extraction and risk of bias assessment using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool. Certainty of evidence was appraised using the GRADE approach.ResultsEleven randomized controlled trials (N = 883) were included. Telerehabilitation delivery was heterogeneous, including asynchronous apps, multidimensional platforms, and telephone support. For functional disability (eight studies, n = 672), most trials reported within-group improvements, but between-group differences were generally non-significant (low certainty evidence). For muscle strength (five studies, n = 321) and shoulder range of motion (three studies, n = 239), gains were comparable to control groups (moderate certainty evidence). The superiority of telerehabilitation was only observed in isolated trials utilizing highly interactive systems (e.g. motion-capture feedback) compared to passive controls.ConclusionTelerehabilitation shows potential as a feasible and promising modality to support post-breast cancer upper limb recovery, particularly when incorporating interactive technologies. However, its definitive clinical equivalence or superiority remains unproven, primarily because remote modalities are frequently compared against clinically active controls, and the current body of evidence is limited by high intervention heterogeneity. Future research requires well-powered non-inferiority trials and clearly defined control arms to isolate the specific effects of remote technological delivery.

PMID:
42489535
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Jul 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.