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1252 - Community Reintegration through the Use of Smartphone Travel Applications for Patients with Neurorehabilitation Conditions: A Pilot Study

Friday, February 23, 2024
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT
Objectives: To identify and evaluate the accessibility and features of smartphone travel applications on Apple Store and Google Play designed for people with disabilities to help with community reintegration, independence, and quality of life post-injury.

Design: A descriptive survey as part of the Plan-Design-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle was utilized to identify current technology of travel applications on various smartphone devices. Search terms were identified for travel accessibility-related results in Apple and Google Store applications. The top 50 search hits were analyzed using iOS 12.2 and Android 8.0.0. The search terms were developed using root words and modifiers to increase specificity for accessible travel applications in the mobile app store. Inclusion criteria included travel and disability-related, US-based, English, and complimentary applications. Exclusion criteria included non-travel, non-English, international-based, and non-complimentary applications. The primary outcome of this study was to identify specific accessible travel mobile applications in Apple Store and Google Play.

Results: 813 total mobile applications were identified with 700 (76.6%) from Google Play and 213 (23.4%) from Apple Store. 213 (23.3%) Google Play and 50 (5.5%) Apple Store applications met the inclusion criteria. The four most common travel applications among Google Play and Apple Store were Wheelmap, Accessible Dispatch NYC, Kimap, and Travable. Google Play produced more total applications and yielded 4.26x more results than the Apple Store based on the search algorithm. However, the Apple Store yielded significantly greater specificity for disability travel applications. There were 14 applications that were common to both application stores.

Conclusions: This is the first study, to our knowledge, that investigated smartphone applications for accessibility travel information. The findings of this study have implications for physicians advocating and creating resources for community reintegration of patients with disabilities.