Living Rehab on turning gait data into engagement, and engagement into outcomes
“Some of my current residents come in, and they always wanna know, ‘What's my score this week?’ Or, ‘Am I green this week or red this week?’”
Kristin Saluja, Senior Director of Rehabilitation, Living Rehab
Kristin Saluja leads rehabilitation for Living Rehab, a Reliant Rehabilitation service working inside senior living communities. Her residents measure their walking with OneStep — and then they come back asking about it.
Therapy only works if residents take part, and in senior living the hardest part is often getting people engaged at all — in screening, in exercise, in their own progress. A therapist's assessment happens a few times a year; what a resident does in between is up to them.
Residents download OneStep on their own phones and walk with it whenever they like. Each walk returns a Walk Score and a fall-risk level they can see and understand, and the therapy team sees the same data — monitoring progress, suggesting ways to improve, and spotting who might need therapy. Living Rehab is now building it into move-in screening, so every new resident starts with a baseline and the team can see, month by month, who is improving and who is declining.
The score turned an assessment into something residents look forward to. They ask for it, they compare weeks, they want to move from red to green — and a resident who wants to improve their score is a resident who shows up for therapy and does the exercises. That engagement is what moves outcomes: more participation, earlier referrals when someone slips, and progress the resident can see for themselves. Kristin's team is now adding OneStep's balance tests to target what matters most in this population: reducing falls.
When residents can see their own progress, they take part in it.
“It allows the resident to do it themselves too. Allows them to be independent in their own health.”
Kristin Saluja, Senior Director of Rehabilitation, Living Rehab