Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Sep 18, 2021; 12(9): 672-684
Published online Sep 18, 2021. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v12.i9.672
Virtual orthopedic assessment: Main principles and specific regions
Khaled M Emara, Ramy Ahmed Diab, Mohamed Amr, Shady Abdelghaffar Mahmoud, Mohamed Nour, Ahmed Abdelsalam, Mahmoud Ahmed Elshobaky, Mona Farhan, Mostafa Gemeah, Ahmed K Emara
Khaled M Emara, Ramy Ahmed Diab, Mohamed Amr, Shady Abdelghaffar Mahmoud, Ahmed Abdelsalam, Mahmoud Ahmed Elshobaky, Mona Farhan, Orthopedic Surgery Department, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11566, Egypt
Mohamed Nour, Orthopedic Surgery Department, Bank Ahly Hospital, Cairo 11566, Egypt
Mostafa Gemeah, Department of Health Care Innovation, Arizona State University, Arizona, AZ 85287, United States
Ahmed K Emara, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, NY 44195, United States
Author contributions: Emara KM and Diab RA designed the study, wrote the protocol, analyzed data, reviewed the manuscript critically, and approved the final version to be published; Amr M, Mahmoud SA and Nour M analyzed the data, and reviewed the manuscript critically; Abdelsalam A, Elshobaky MA, Farhan M, Gemeah M and Emara AK collected data, and wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicting interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Khaled M Emara, FRCS, MD, PhD, Full Professor, Orthopedic Surgery Department, Ain Shams University, El-Khalyfa El-Mamoun Street Abbasya, Cairo 11566, Egypt. kmemara@hotmail.com
Received: February 24, 2021
Peer-review started: February 24, 2021
First decision: May 3, 2021
Revised: May 7, 2021
Accepted: August 6, 2021
Article in press: August 6, 2021
Published online: September 18, 2021
Abstract

Telemedicine was originally created as a way to treat patients who were located in remote places far away from local health facilities or in areas with shortages of medical professionals. Telemedicine is still used today to address those problems, and is increasingly becoming a tool for convenient medical care. With the emergence of pandemics, telemedicine became almost a mandatory and valuable option for continuing to provide medical care in various specialties. As the threat of pandemic progress has continued for months and may continue for years, it is essential to validate existing tools to maintain clinical assessment and patient treatment to avoid negative consequences of the lack of medical follow-up. Therefore, the establishment of a virtual assessment technique that can be conducted effectively is of outmost importance as a way of adapting to the current situation. This study evaluated the role of telemedicine in the assessment of various orthopedic pathologies by means of a systematic virtual evaluation.

Keywords: Telemedicine, Virtual assessment, Orthopedics, Epidemic diseases

Core Tip: Telemedicine can be used to diagnose many orthopedic disorders and can be used for follow-up care after medical and surgical treatment. Its importance has increased dramatically with the emergence of epidemic diseases. However, an initial face-to-face assessment is recommended, especially in complicated cases where the diagnosis is uncertain. In this article, describe the role of telemedicine in the assessment of various orthopedic pathologies by systematic virtual evaluation.