Network Medicine as a Tool to Enhance Regenerative Rehabilitation Practice

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to demonstrate the utility of network medicine for enhancing regenerative rehabilitation approaches. DESIGN: We employed a scientometric approach to illustrate the scientific evolution of regenerative rehabilitation and network medicine over the past 20 yrs. We then present two exemplars of a novel application of network medicine, first to optimize the development of a multimodal rehabilitation program for osteoarthritis and, second, to demonstrate the potential utility of a regenerative rehabilitation protocol for neurological applications. RESULTS: The scientometric analysis revealed thematic clusters guiding the fields of regenerative rehabilitation, while also revealing a notable gap in the integration of advanced computational biology tools, such as network medicine. To address this gap, we applied a network medicine paradigm as a proof-of-principle in rehabilitation, demonstrating its ability to predict previously known combinational benefits of a multimodal rehabilitation protocol for osteoarthritis and potential of a regenerative rehabilitation protocol to enhance outcomes after stroke. CONCLUSIONS: The trajectory of progress in regenerative rehabilitation has been defined by embracing new technologies and approaches. We propose that network medicine is a new frontier for the field. Toward the design of efficient and optimized clinical protocols, we anticipate that the network medicine paradigm may have broad applications in the field of rehabilitation, even beyond the examples presented here.