The development of services that provide home-based rehabilitation for stroke patients has attracted increasing interest. Research has demonstrated this new rehabilitation approach should include a psychosocial component. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use, feasibility and acceptability of virtual assistant technology to provide post-discharge psychosocial support for people with stroke receiving telerehabilitation, and their caregivers.

This was a pragmatic usability study using a convenience sample from a hospital based home rehabilitation service. For four weeks Anna acted as a virtual assistant via a tablet application, and provided participants with 11 different health coaching sessions (HCS) delivering stroke-specific educational content. Other app features included daily facts, scheduling and messaging. Outcome measures were app usage, ease of use and usefulness (7-point Likert scale). Additional in-depth interviews explored participants’ perspectives on the assistive mobile technology.

Fifteen patients (71% male, mean age 67±11 years) and their caregivers followed the program. Adherence was high, with on average 8.4±2.9/11 HCS completed. The use of calendar and messenger functions ranged from never to frequent. Ease of use (mean 6.1±0.9) and usefulness (mean 6.2±1.3) scores were high. In the interviews, participants considered the HCS informative, relevant and comprehensive. The majority of patients evaluated Anna as supportive and encouraging. All expressed preference for an avatar based app over other ways of information provision and all believed Anna supported them in their rehabilitation program.

The participants related to, and felt supported by the virtual health coach Anna. Virtual assistant technology seems a feasible and acceptable means of providing educational information, HCS, and support among community-dwelling people with stroke and their caregivers. Future studies are required to determine the potential benefit of this support system on health outcomes as well as costs.