Taynara Louisi Pilger, PT, PhD, of the University of São Paulo, and colleagues conducted the study and published their results in Pain Management Nursing.
Investigators underscored the frequency and severity of upper limb pain that patients with breast cancer experience after treatment and highlighted that it often continues “beyond the acute postoperative period,” affecting physical function, self-management, and quality of life.
They explained that “telerehabilitation has emerged as a strategy to expand access to physiotherapy-based care; however, its effectiveness for pain management in this population remains unclear.”
The systematic review analyzed the PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases and was performed “in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines and prospectively registered in PROSPERO.”
Investigators searched databases for information through December 2025, and eligible studies included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that assessed “telerehabilitation-based physiotherapy interventions and reporting outcomes related to upper-limb pain.”
The study team included six RCTs, which included data from 517 female patients, in the systematic review. Telerehabilitation interventions that the researchers analyzed included synchronous, asynchronous, app-based, or telephone-based interventions, which also varied by intensity and duration.
Investigators highlighted that “one trial demonstrated a significant reduction in the proportion of women reporting chronic arm pain, and another reported greater improvement in pain interference, but not pain intensity.”
However, the other studies that were evaluated demonstrated that pain management outcomes through telerehabilitation were “comparable to usual care” or showed “no significant benefit.”
Furthermore, investigators discussed various barriers and limitations uncovered by the systematic review, which included “heterogeneity in pain assessment tools, limited individualization of interventions, attrition, lack of blinding, and inconsistent reporting of analgesic use.”
The study team also analyzed implications for oncology nursing and multidisciplinary practice, and the authors noted that “management of upper-limb pain after breast cancer treatment through telerehabilitation requires coordinated input from multidisciplinary healthcare teams, including nurses and physical therapists.
“Telerehabilitation may facilitate remote pain monitoring, patient education, and self-management across survivorship care, provided that interventions are structured, clearly protocolized, and focused on pain-specific outcomes,” they concluded. “Evidence of benefit is primarily associated with structured, high-frequency, and multimodal programs.”