Digital Health Innovations in Rehabilitation: Integrating Clinical, Technological, and Ethical Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Rehabilitation is an essential part of healthcare for patients recovering from injuries, neurological disorders, chronic illnesses, or post-surgical procedures. With the growth of electronic health records, mobile health apps, and wearable devices, the ability to transform raw data into meaningful insights has become essential. Information science supports this by enabling data organization, advanced analytics, and decision support while ensuring interoperability across systems. Equally, it addresses privacy, ethics, and usability, making digital health solutions secure, reliable, and patient-centered. The rapid proliferation of digital health technologies—ranging from wearable sensors and telerehabilitation platforms to AI-driven decision support—has begun to reshape the entire rehabilitation continuum. Yet translating these innovations into routine clinical practice remains challenging.

This Special Issue invites original research, systematic reviews, perspectives, and brief reports that address (i) clinical challenges, (ii) technological advances, and (iii) ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSIs) surrounding digital health in rehabilitation. By juxtaposing clinical, technological, and ethical viewpoints, this issue aims to articulate a coherent roadmap for the next decade of digital health-enabled rehabilitation.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Clinical effectiveness and implementation science of digital rehabilitation tools (e.g., stroke and musculoskeletal, cardiopulmonary, and neuro-degenerative disorders).
• Technological advances in digital health focused on artificial intelligence applications in clinical practice for personalised therapy planning, outcome prediction, and remote monitoring.
• Privacy-preserving analytics, cybersecurity, and governance frameworks for sensitive patient data in healthcare systems.
• Regulatory pathways and health equity considerations that influence adoption.
• Ethical and societal challenges in applying digital health solutions to rehabilitation (e.g., patient autonomy and informed consent, accessibility, and long-term data stewardship).

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Yusuke Matsui
Guest Editor

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• digital rehabilitation
• telerehabilitation
• wearable sensors
• artificial intelligence
• data privacy
• implementation science
• ethical AI
• remote monitoring