I want to share with you positive news. On the frontlines in the battle against COVID-19 and under more public scrutiny than ever, I’m seeing nursing home professionals creatively provide therapy and engagement to patients. Patients are reaching therapy goals even in this new season of social distancing and closed therapy gyms.

How?

Our clients are using gaming software in skilled nursing facilities so that all they need is a laptop to get patients engaged in therapy. They’re reaching higher for a slot machine level or standing up and moving side to side by playing games like Jackpot and Skiing.

• Patients are so busy playing, they forget they’re in therapy
• Patients are connecting with loved ones back at home, who join the therapy session right there on the app
• Facility team members on all levels are stepping in to support therapy goals

Imagine Zoom with a Wii. That’s how I’m seeing seniors reach new goals in therapy and even get discharged home where they continue using the software – even during COVID-19. Especially during COVID-19.

RESTORE Skills is the only therapy software available with no device required outside of a laptop. We are the only player in the market that allows users to take a laptop in a room and reach therapy goals. At a time when nursing homes are even more severely understaffed and patients are isolated in their rooms, RESTORE skills turns every team member into a skill-building superstar – from activities directors, to CNAs and nurses. 

It is our goal to give as many seniors access to this transformative tool as possible.

Because across the country, many nursing home patients are missing this opportunity and most likely missing out on crucial therapy sessions while isolated in their rooms. We are offering our software at an unprecedented low price during COVID-19 so that we can help many skilled nursing facilities continue to provide cutting edge therapy even amidst a pandemic.

Let’s change the trajectory of the story of skilled nursing care in the news right now and fill it with stories of positive outcomes. Because anyone familiar with this industry knows the positive outcomes are typical, even if they’re not the story in the news. 

When we launched RESTORE Skills, never did we imagine that therapy gyms would close for months at a time and skilled nursing facility patients would be isolated in their rooms. Now that COVID-19 has made this a reality, with no foreseeable end in sight, we at RESTORE Skills are seeing just how transformative our tool is for providing therapy to seniors now more than ever. 

• Clients are using our gamified software to turn every patient room into a therapy gym
• RESTORE-Together offers the ability to invite family members to virtually join therapy sessions with the click of a button

New communication tool in our technology

When we saw our clients setting up Zoom calls for residents and families, we quickly developed a new communication tool for our software. RESTORE-Together allows patients and therapists to invite family members to join therapy sessions right there within the games. 

RESTORE-Together is helping skilled nursing patients connect with loved ones in a powerful new way. Videoconferences with seniors can be challenging for those who struggle with new technology, but RESTORE-Together is a therapy tool seniors and therapists already know how to use. The communication tool also allows families to connect with loved ones in cognitive and speech therapy in a meaningful way.

We developed RESTORE Skills as a skill-building tool for therapy gyms, where patients can show off their new skills, compete in therapy games against one another and cheer each other on. Each player can work on their own set of skills, within their personal range of motion, but the games themselves offer a sense of competition where patients celebrate and strive to outperform one another. Users only need our software and a webcam to use RESTORE Skills anywhere, so it has always been a significant bonus that patients can continue building therapy skills on their own at home.

Now with RESTORE-Together, the audience patients enjoyed in the therapy gyms is back. Only this time, the audience is made up of loved ones.

Turns out we started getting RESTORE Skills into long term care facilities just in time. 

Our tool supports challenges facilities are facing right now. 

• Skilled nursing facilities are struggling with staff shortages
• Patients no longer have visitors 
• Activity directors have limited options for keeping seniors social and engaged
• Therapists are having to provide therapy within patient rooms
• Skilled nursing staff are now also the IT experts, connecting residents with families over video conferences.

We at RESTORE Skills are helping SNFs meet all of these challenges. We’re working harder than ever to get RESTORE Skills into as many skilled nursing facilities as possible. Therapy and positive outcomes for our seniors in these facilities depend on it.

Click here to schedule a demo and find out how RESTORE-Skills can help your facility meet therapy needs during COVID-19.

On this day and every day, all of us at RESTORE-Skills honor nurses as the healthcare heroes that they are. I see firsthand in our work with senior care facilities the demands placed on nurses. They are always on the frontlines of every patients’ battle for the best outcome possible. Perhaps during no time since World War II has this been more apparent than in the middle of our current global pandemic of COVID-19. 

This National Nurses Day my team and I are celebrating long term care nurses by improving therapy outcomes for their patients.

I’ve seen firsthand that nurses in skilled nursing facilities are among the most dedicated in the field. They get to know patients in senior care facilities over a length of time and many consider the residents like family. It takes a special soul to nurse a patient back to health at a time when there are so many compounding issues that come with aging. Sometimes the job of the nurse is to simply hold a patients’ hands and provide comfort.

Other times, it’s the job of long term care nurses to motivate their patients to get up and get moving for therapy. While they are not the therapy providers, nurses and their assistants are key players in ensuring that patients are ready and in the best mindset possible for therapy sessions.

What if we made that part of nurses’ jobs a lot easier? And in the process, we improved the outcomes for patients these nurses have come to love?

My team and I are doing just that with RESTORE-Skills. Here’s how I am seeing our skilled nursing facility clients benefit from our therapy software tool:

• Our award-winning gamification technology makes therapy fun and engaging so that patients actually ask to play. 
• Skilled nursing patients are actually playing therapy games right in their rooms during COVID-19 while therapy gyms are closed.
• Every team member of skilled nursing facilities becomes a therapy skill building superstar with just a laptop and webcam.
• Patients are staying busy, active and engaged while reaching therapy goals, breaking up these long days isolated in their rooms while eating meals by the door.

This National Nurses Day, we’re honoring these healthcare heroes by working to advance their quiet daily goal of improving each patient’s outcome. I believe in the power of this software to create positive therapy outcomes on a massive scale because we see it happen in our clients’ facilities every day. The time is now to give nurses and all dedicated employees in skilled nursing facilities a game-changing tool in their arsenal.

We want to get RESTORE Skills in the hands of every long term care facility possible. Click here to learn about our COVID-19 special offer.

We're thrilled to be featured on Skilled Nursing News today. Aaryn Crosby of Adaptive Rehab Services and our CEO, Eran Arden sat down with Skilled Nursing News to discuss the impact of RESTORE-Skills on therapy services and the unforeseen benefits in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Below, is an excerpt from the article:

By “gamifying” therapy via a hardware-agnostic platform, some providers are finding not only much greater engagement among patients and residents receiving therapy, but also the unforeseen benefit of engaging non-therapy residents and their family members under social distancing protocols set under the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Driving therapy engagement 

As a third-party therapy provider in multiple settings including post-acute and long-term care facilities, Adaptive Rehabilitation Services set out in 2019 to find a platform that would improve patient participation and garner more engagement in therapy as well as to measure functional skills and progress. Further, Adaptive wanted a solution that did not require a hardware purchase to host the platform. 

“There are a lot of products that require the user to have [a specific] device,” says Aaryn Crosby, Chief Operating Officer at Middleburg Heights, Ohio-based Adaptive Rehabilitation Services. “We were looking for something that can work on multiple systems and computers… something that could deliver functional room treatments. Many patients may not be able to come down or are nervous to come down to the gym.”

The company implemented RESTORE Skills in early 2020 and saw measured success in engagement. The platform, which can run on any web-enabled laptop with a display and a camera, provides a series of goal-oriented games that merge therapy with fun tasks that can be played with a single player or multiple players engaged on a single screen. 

With games to present to residents and patients, therapy teams soon reported that those not previously participating were increasingly using the platform and we're seeing increased functional outcomes. They were practicing more and were resisting less, which led to improved progress overall. 

“Having a truly fun and interactive therapy session versus a standard therapeutic exercise has increased engagement and mental well being by allowing patients to perform together and compete,” Crosby says. 

An unforeseen benefit: the platform serves as an activity for non-therapy residents as well. 

“We have had activity aides asking for us to train them on the program; residents’ roommates are telling them they want to try it out too,” he says.

Click here to read the full article. Interested in seeing gamification in action? Contact our team to schedule a demo and to learn how gamification can drive engagement and outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.