Category Archives: News

Q&A: Player Dignity

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Question: 

We love the RESTORE technology; however, one concern we have is that many of the games appear “child-like” and we worry about this from a dignity standpoint with our senior population. Have you had anyone else with this concern?  Any insight is appreciated. 

 

Answer: 

Thank you for the feedback and important question. 

Our platform takes into consideration that the majority of skilled nursing residents have a degree of cognitive impairment (in addition to any physical limitations). From my OT and Dementia Capable Care background, we have applied the theory of retrogenesis (back to birth) to our platform. That is not to say treat adults like children, but to appreciate that their developmental ability levels have regressed to the chronological age of 4-16 years old. It is important to keep simplistic themes, actions, and graphics for our population and to be able to grade the games based on the degree of difficulty settings.

 

RESTORE Player Testimonial

The most important key is to ensure an individual is able to experience success. We do not receive concerns related to graphics when the therapists and care partners have ensured the player meets with success and not frustration. Since many have not played these types of games before, the hesitancy is more related to anxiety that they will not perform well and therefore may remark that it is stupid or for kids, but this is typically a defense mechanism.

Video games are the most popular consumed media today and have officially overtaken the sport and movie industries in 2021. We are talking about games like Candy Crush, Mario Kart, Bubble Pop, etc. I'm currently addicted to a Harry Potter Match 3 game (and not even a huge Harry Potter fan lol). If you love games and you love competition, the graphics/animations are secondary to your success and FUN!

 

 

Director of Clinical Success

Q&A: Getting to know RESTORE-Skill’s new Director of Clinical Success, Suzi Fullam, COTA/L

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What do you do at RESTORE-Skills and in what circumstances would I come to you for something?

It is a challenge to learn anything new. It takes time, interest, repetition, and often a little coaching and encouragement. As a therapist in the Director of Clinical Success role, I work directly with clinicians, no matter their level of experience, to support them in their goal to accelerate clinical outcomes through their use of our therapeutic, skill-building games. My job is to help our users reach their goals in a fun and creative way and celebrate their success along the way. Most importantly, I learn from their valuable feedback, which I take back to our development team so that we can continue to improve the platform and align RESTORE with what is being requested. 

RETSORE's new Director of Clinical Success

Suzi Fullam, COTA/L, Director of Clinical Success with her beloved dog Tuna.

Are you a dog person or a cat person (or neither)?

Dog person! My fur child’s name is Tuna, she’s a rescue, a Labradane, and like me the runt of the litter!

Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?

My mother. She is a very hard worker and has been a role model for me growing up. She showed us as kids that with hard work you can achieve anything you want. My mom started as a secretary at Bell Atlantic which is now known as Verizon. She worked very hard and they paid for her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s Degree, both graduations I was in attendance for. After climbing the Verizon ladder, she was able to retire at the nice age of 52. She influences me to be like her, to work so hard I can have the things I want. 

 

What led you to this career path?

In my career as a therapist, I’ve come to appreciate the role technology and digital health will play in the future of healthcare. After using RESTORE in my own practice and seeing the impact tech can have on patients’ motivation and engagement, I knew I wanted to be a part of this journey to help as many people overcome their resistance to embracing that innovative healthcare technology now. 

How do you prefer to start and end your day?

I prefer to start my day with coffee, I prefer to end my day with snuggles from my dog. Although, should probably have one of those answers as exercise but so far it’s just a dream. 

What three words would your friends use to describe you?

Fun, Loveable, Loyal.

What’s changed you about the COVID-19 pandemic, and why?

My husband and I have a calendar in our kitchen, pre-covid it was full of social events every Saturday and Sunday for months. Some of our close friends and family would get annoyed by it trying to plan something last minute. Since Covid-19 our calendar has emptied and I think I like it better now than it was before. Covid-19 has made me a “home-body” and a proud one. 

If you could choose a superpower, what would it be?

Teleportation. Snap my fingers and be somewhere without having to travel or spend time on the road.

What is your favorite thing to do when not at work?

Attend Philadelphia Eagles games. I am a season ticket holder and die-hard fan!

If you could only eat one food item for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Pizza! Just plain for me, I would prefer to have no toppings at all, but a side of ranch dressing is a necessity.

WREG News Live at 9

NEWS: RESTORE-Skills featured on WREG News Live at 9

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RESTORE-Skills' CEO, Eran Arden, spoke with Jerrita Patterson on WREG News' Live at 9 about connecting seniors & their loved ones.

Patterson: More and more senior citizens are really lining up to get coronavirus vaccines across the country. But for many in nursing homes, the pandemic continues to keep them isolated from both family and friends. Now, a new platform is changing the way loved ones can interact all while staying safely apart. This morning, we're live with the CEO of RESTORE-Skills, Eran Arden, to learn more about RESTORE-Together.

Patterson: Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a motivational therapy platform, correct? Explain what this is about.

Arden: Jerrita, thank you very much! Yeah, you are correct. RESTORE-Skills is a gaming enviornment that motivates residents in nursing homes to continue building and matain the skills they need to live independetly. We use a simple computer, so no expensive devices needed, and we have about 200 activities all designed to motivate the patients to stay active. [They can] work on their sit to stand skills, motor skills, range of motion and everything in between all while playing games.

Arden: When the pandemic started, we also realized we also want to help connect family members to their loved ones in the facilities. So, we created an enviornment where residents that are isolated [in their room] can play with their loved ones [who are] at home.

Patterson: What has been the reaction from those in nursing homes? What have you heard? What have you seen so far?

Arden: The reaction is amazing and that's what empowers us to wake up in the morning and develop the [platform] and our games.

Check out the full interview on WREG News' Live at 9 Facebook page HERE!

bingo

“Let It Snow Bingo” is LIVE!

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You asked, we delivered! We know your residents have missed the excitement of competition that comes with their regularly attended bingo game. The pandemic has limited seniors’ ability to engage in this tried and true activity, so we responded by creating a virtual version of the classic game. 

Traditional BINGO encourages socialization, helps maintain cognition, and promotes eye-hand coordination. Plus, it’s just plain fun! Now, your residents can play interactively with their loved ones, peers in their center, and/or with other players across the country - all from the safety of their rooms or in a socially distanced setting!

Let It Snow Bingo

Use your controller to spin the cage, pick up a BINGO ball, and either place it on your card or place it in the discard bin next to your board. Don't forget to press "BINGO" when you complete a row vertically (up/down), horizontally (across), or diagonally. Get points for placing balls and getting as many BINGOs as you can before time runs out! 

 

Skills Addressed: Functional reach, eye-hand coordination, sustained attention, concentration, decision-making, activity tolerance

Let it Snow BINGO
Let it Snow BINGO

Clinical Benefits of Let it Snow Bingo:

  • Physical benefits: Upper extremity coordination and functional reach, activity tolerance, and balance for sitting or standing.
  • Cognitive benefits: Sustained attention, goal-directed, concentration, decision making, scanning
  • Social benefits: Mitigate social isolation by competing with others (i.e. family members, friends, other patients or residents)

Be sure to log in and check out “Let it Snow Bingo” for yourself. Better yet, set up a multiplayer game for your residents to connect with their loved ones today! Don’t have access and want to learn more? Give us a call (234) 303-0723 or send us an email info@restoreskills.com to schedule your live demo.

Spectrum 1 News Ohio

NEWS: RESTORE-Skills featured on Spectrum 1 News Ohio

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Below is an excerpt from the story from Spectrum 1 News Ohio:

CLEVELAND — Elizabeth Sims and her caregiver admit that since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, things haven’t been the same at The Heights Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Broadview Heights. Pandemic restrictions have cut out communal dining, team exercise and group therapy at facility.

“Before, we used to be able to be down in the therapy gym. So, it would be fun because they're all around people; you could play games and now, you're really stuck in the rooms with the patients,” Sims says.

Things have taken a turn for the better at the facility. Residents started connecting virtually through RESTORE-Skills, a computer based motivational therapy platform with a multiplayer function that now allows patients the ability to play skill-building games with one another.

“At least they can interact and you're using technology and they can still get involved and do some kind of fun…and it helps her cognitive skills.”  Tina Wilson’s caregiver says.

Check out the full interview with our CEO, Eran Arden, and the team from The Heights HERE!

We RESTORE-Skills TOGETHER

Q&A: RESTORE-Together

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Question: 

Tell me more about RESTORE-Together and it’s benefits? What is the difference between a live game and a private game?

Answer:

We are very excited to be able to introduce RESTORE-Together, which for the first time allows patients/players to play interactively with their loved ones, other patients/residents in their center, and/or with other players across the country - all from the safety of their rooms or in a socially distanced setting. Our primary motivation was to advocate for older adults, vulnerable to the risks of social isolation, by providing access to a virtual community of skill-builders.

Benefits:

  • Helps mitigate the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial risks of isolation by connecting patients/residents with others they know and love
  • Fosters a sense of community to have patients, therapists, and care partners interacting in a similar skill-building fashion with their peers nationwide
  • Increases fun, engagement, and motivation to accelerate outcomes and provide a better patient experience

Live games:

  • The ability to join a desired game with others is always open and does not require a code
  • A player joins, enters a player name/identifier, indicates readiness, and waits a short time (often less than 1 minute) to see other players that join the competition
  • Players will always know the score in head-to-head games or where they rank in tournament-style games

Private games: 

  • Allow a user to send a code to designated participants who can join the action by visiting the website restoreskills.com/together, entering the code, and following the instructions
  • Adds motivation for the player as he/she will be interacting with family members, friends, or peers that they have expressed an interest in joining a fun and competitive RESTORE skill-building session
  • If an audio exchange is desired during the session, we recommend having a phone or video conference call
    • Note - we are working on a simple, emoji-based way to communicate within the game play if audio is not available or desired
    • Note - some video conferencing apps will need to have the camera turned off so that RESTORE has primary access to the camera
  • Players will always know the score in head-to-head games or where they rank in tournament-style games

Instructions for a player joining upon receiving a private game invite:

  • Open Google Chrome and go to: restoreskills.com/together
  • Secure the four (4) character code from the invitee and enter it in the text box
  • Click “Join” to enter the private game
  • If prompted, select “allow” to enable camera access
  • Have a red, green, or blue rounded object available for play (i.e., ball, apple, container lid, cup, etc.)
  • When prompted, use your mouse to select the color of your rounded object 
  • To calibrate, bring your controller to the center of the square, making sure the camera can clearly see the color of the object

 

  • Enter your name or identifier in the text box and click ‘save’

 

  • Click the ‘Ready’ button. When all players are ready, the game will start after a 20 second countdown 

When players (patients) are having fun and engaged they focus less on targeted skills and more on the game. Fostering a sense of community by connecting with others will help mitigate the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial risks of isolation.

GAMES FOR SKILL BUILDING

New Multiplayer Activity: Plinko Party

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If you love to play our hit game “Jackpot” then get ready for our new game “Plinko Party”!  Players can experience the FUN of virtually dropping their tokens into a Plinko board either individually in a therapy session, remotely with their loved ones & peers, or even participate in live, nationwide gaming tournaments -- all from the safety of their rooms!

games for skill building

Plinko Party 

Players can experience the excitement of the classic game show favorite, with RESTORE’s interactive Plinko board! To play, use the controller to guide the on-screen hand to the falling tokens. Hold the hand over a token to select it and pick it up. Move the hand with a token to the top of the Plinko board. Choose a slot and hold your position to release the token. Watch it drop down the board until it reaches one of the point totals! Bonus tokens give players the opportunity to multiply their score, but watch out, the board is dynamic, so the scores will shuffle as they play!

games for therapy

Clinical Benefits of Plinko Party

  • Physical benefits: Upper extremity coordination and functional reach, activity tolerance, and balance for sitting or standing.
  • Cognitive benefits: Sustained attention, goal-directed, concentration, decision making, scanning
  • Social benefits: Mitigate social isolation by competing with others (i.e. family members, friends, other patients or residents)

Be sure to login to check out “Plinko Party” for yourself. Better yet, set up a multiplayer game for your residents to connect with their loved ones today! Don’t have access and want to learn more? Give us a call (234) 303-0723 or send us an email info@restoreskills.com to schedule your live demo.

abc7 San Francisco

NEWS: RESTORE-Skills featured on ABC7 San Francisco

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Below is an excerpt from the story from ABC7 News San Francisco:

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Health is an important aspect of Building a Better Bay Area.

As patients at care facilities are dealing with prolonged social isolation with visits from families curtailed or not allowed, caregivers are turning to multi-player skill games to improve patient outcomes.

Bingo has always been a popular way to engage patients in care facilities to use their minds, hands, and arms. COVID-19 has not only stopped that, but also visits from loved ones.
"If we don't have friends and peers to work with, then you know, then we, unfortunately, don't have the motivation to practice and to live longer," said Eran Arden, CEO at Restore Skills. RESTORE-Skills is a cloud-based platform with a library of 50 games that occupational therapists can use for rehabilitation and skills development.
51-year-old Mike Willham has multiple sclerosis. Moving a ball in his hand to play a slot machine game is more than just having fun at winning jackpots. "It allows me to move my left arm from side to side and up and down. And it has built up strength in the left arm," said Willham as he made those moves. An up and down motion with the ball caused the arm on the slot machine to activate."
It's helping with cognition, it helps with fine motor, gross motor coordination, strengthening," said Carrie Blum, an occupational therapy assistant at The Heights Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center. "It's been helping with their endurance and activity tolerance."

Check out the full interview with our CEO, Eran Arden, and the team from The Heights HERE!

skilled nursing isolation

We RESTORE-Skills TOGETHER!

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RESTORE-Together motivates skilled nursing patients to safely collaborate with loved ones and join team activities

Isolation is not for us. As human beings, we are together creatures. We strive for connection from the second we are born; from the minute we look for our mother’s eyes to the language we develop, the relationships we build, and the communities we are so proud to be part of.

Today we are proud to launch RESTORE-Together, enhancing our motivational therapy platform with a multiplayer function.  Patients now have the ability to play therapy-driven skill-building games remotely with their loved ones, connect with other residents in the skilled nursing facility for a group activity, and even participate in live, nationwide gaming tournaments — all from the safety of their rooms!

RESTORE-Together addresses isolation challenge

RESTORE-Together couldn’t have come at a more crucial time. 

Among the biggest emotional challenges, residents are facing during the pandemic is social and emotional isolation. Residents have spent months in their rooms, with day rooms and therapy gyms closed, limitations on visits,  and still no end in sight.  

A new survey of 365 nursing home residents in 36 states, conducted throughout July and August, by the non-profit Altarum Institute, shows that pandemic restrictions have affected nearly every part of residents’ lives, especially their mental health. According to the survey results, “76 percent of respondents reported that they felt lonelier under the restrictions, an unsurprising finding, given that 64 percent of respondents also indicated that they no longer even leave their rooms to socialize with other residents.”

Multiplayer, social gaming opportunities offer residents a chance to safely socialize while making therapy strides.

In our beta testing of RESTORE-Together, the feedback from therapists, patients and their family members has been overwhelmingly positive. We saw firsthand patients’ excitement for the opportunity to connect and share an experience with a loved one or friend. One patient in a Columbus, Ohio-based nursing home tripled his standing tolerance while competing in our slot machine game against his sister in Cleveland. It was a powerful moment for the patient, his sister, and the occupational therapist working with the patient.

We know that today, during the forced COVID-19 isolation, finding the motivation to practice therapy exercises is even more challenging. And residents and therapists alike are tired of the limited therapy exercises they can practice in the patient rooms. 

With RESTORE, we have seen how making therapy more fun, with patient-centered games provides a tremendous boost to motivation. RESTORE turns every patient room into a therapy gym, and now RESTORE-Together turns these same rooms into group therapy gyms.

Group activities that motivate residents with a sense of competition from the safety of their room

Breakthroughs are created when we work together. Even tennis players are not alone in a game, during the game breaks, they communicate with their coaches to get advice and release emotions. When running a marathon seeing your family cheering along the way gives you a burst of energy that will support you in the following miles. 

Just prior to the pandemic, skilled nursing facilities were providing more group and concurrent therapy sessions to comply with PDPM, the new payment system from October 2019. Therapists found that the group dynamic added a social element to therapy, similar to the motivation people receive from a workout buddy or group exercise class. Just as these sessions became more popular, therapy gyms closed.

RESTORE-Together provides nursing home staff with the ability to create a facility-wide activity. Residents now are missing the close friendships and connections that normally occur in these facilities. Thanks to Restore-Together, residents can once again safely join a social activity without leaving their rooms. The smiles on the patients’ faces trying to win a virtual air hockey game while working on transitional movements showed us the power of collaboration.

Studies show that participants are more motivated to complete a physical effort task in which they face competition from another player over one where they are rewarded for winning an overall percentage.

No doubt RESTORE-Together will be an additional source of motivation and smiles for nursing home residents, their families, and the teams working with them across the U.S.  

No special hardware is needed, RESTORE-Together offers all the benefits of RESTORE, now with the additional benefit of collaboration. Thanks to the RESTORE platform, facilities across the country can do the following from their simple laptops:

  • Turn every patient room into a therapy gym with just a laptop and a webcam
  • Employees on every level can become a skill-building superstar. 
  • Connect patients to loved ones and other therapy patients
  • Keep seniors busy, active, and engaged

Everything we do at RESTORE-Skills comes from our passion to help therapists motivate patients. We want to see every patient restore the skills they need to live a more full and independent life. 

Let’s RESTORE-Together,

Eran Arden

WBOC Good Day Delmarva

NEWS: RESTORE-Skills featured on WBOC’s Good Day Delmarva

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Below is an excerpt from the story from Good Day Delmarva: 

For today's Wellness Wednesday, Sydney speaks with Joe Asseline with the Westgate Hills Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center to learn about the steps they're taking to provide contact-less care during the ongoing pandemic. 

Today with the help of Westgate Hills Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Baltimore, Maryland we discover ways in which they're reaching goals with a contactless approach.

Joe: I've been working at Westgate Hills Rehab for the past year and a half. My goal is to help patient's restore their function & independence through actiticties of daily living and self-care tasks. 

Sydney: How are have you noticing that certain facilities or even yours are turning to technology to help folks get the therapy and attention that they need? 

Joe: In my sesssion, I find it's very important to use video chat...we've also been able to use this really cool RESTORE virtual reality game system. RESTORE is a syetm that we are able to bring therapeutic activties and excercises into the rooms of patients. Not only that, there's a new feature that they've just rolled out that we're able to video chat in with the families so they can add words of encouragement. It's really cool! I find that they're always asking to use it because they think the games are really fun, 

Check it out the full interview with Joe Asselin, OTR/L HERE!