Fig. 1

The changing roles of clinicians and technology in rehabilitation. Advanced technology including virtual reality, telerehabilitation, robotics, as well as sophisticated machine learning algorithms are transforming traditional clinical care. The clinician’s role in the past and present has been critical to patient care. While this still remains true, changing roles of the clinician include when a remote (telehealth) or onsite clinician can treat one or more patients with the aid of technology that has increased reach, reduced clinician burden, and/or automated assessment and intervention. In the future there are many ways that the clinician may continue to serve the patient population, however, one possible future being debated is whether advanced technology could ever completely replace the clinician