Telerehabilitation 101: Assessment and Treatment Skills

Overview

Telerehabilitation has fundamentally changed how physiotherapists deliver care — but most clinicians received zero training on how to conduct a rigorous, evidence-based assessment through a screen. This course closes that gap. Designed as a practical, 4-hour deep dive, it equips you with a psychologically informed framework for assessing and treating persistent pain, central sensitization, and psychosocial distress in a virtual environment. You will leave with a working clinical structure — not theory alone — including validated distress questionnaires, an evidence-informed exercise bank, and real-world tools to build therapeutic alliance when you can't be in the same room as your patient.

Whether you are new to telerehab or already seeing patients online and questioning whether you are doing it right, this course will give you both the confidence and the competence to deliver high-quality virtual physiotherapy care.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. Use intentional listening strategies during telerehabilitation intake to build a strong therapeutic alliance and gather clinically meaningful history remotely.
   
   
2. Apply a biopsychosocial assessment framework to screen for central sensitization and determine when a psychologically informed approach is clinically indicated.
   
   
3. Assess key distress markers — including catastrophization, depression, anxiety, and stress — using validated tools within physiotherapy scope of practice.
   
   
4. Deliver targeted, practical interventions for psychosocial distress using global movement and exercise strategies designed for virtual delivery.
   
   
5. Draw from an evidence-informed exercise bank (including Qi Gong, full-body movement, and breathing work) to address distress markers and promote neuroplasticity in persistent pain patients.
   
   
6. Deliver pain neurophysiology education confidently in a telerehab setting, helping patients contextualize their pain experience within a whole-person framework.

Audience

This course is designed for physiotherapists and rehabilitation professionals who are seeing patients virtually — or who anticipate doing so — and want to move beyond basic video calls to deliver structured, evidence-informed care. It is particularly well-suited to clinicians working in orthopaedics, pelvic health, or persistent pain who recognize that the psychosocial dimensions of pain are often where the greatest clinical gains lie, and who want a replicable framework for addressing those dimensions online. New graduates who want to quickly build competency in contemporary pain science and virtual care will find it especially valuable, as will experienced clinicians looking to modernize their assessment and treatment approach for the telehealth era.

Why This Course Matters

Telerehabilitation is not simply in-person physiotherapy conducted over video — it requires a deliberate shift in how you gather information, build trust, and deliver care. Research consistently shows that patient outcomes are shaped less by the specific technique a therapist uses than by the therapeutic alliance, hope, and expectancy created during treatment. When you remove physical contact from the equation, your ability to harness those factors depends entirely on your assessment and communication skills. This course teaches you to leverage the strengths of the telehealth format rather than mourn its limitations: patients with central sensitization and psychosocial distress — who are often the most challenging to treat in person — may actually be among your best candidates for virtual care. Understanding why, and knowing how to identify and serve them, is a clinical edge that translates directly into better patient outcomes and a more sustainable practice.

What Clinicians Are Saying

"I am very impressed with this resource - thank you for so generously sharing your expertise, collating so much up-to-date research and encouraging clinicians to stay curious and keep pursuing ways we can better serve our clients."

"This course was very well organized and I appreciate all of the resources provided. A lot of tools to add to my tool box."

"While rather specific to pelvic floor issues, I found the information presented both useful and the resources helpful. Thank you."