In a post-pandemic, remote world, telehealth has become a vital resource for millions who have limited physical mobility. OneStep is a brand hoping to bridge the gap between those looking to improve their mobility and accessibility while accessing professional physical therapy treatment. It can help with post-op recovery, healing after an injury, or even simply improving mobility as one ages and feels pain and discomfort.

37 million Americans currently live their lives with some sort of mobility disability, according to the OneStep website. Moreover, 91% of those who could benefit from physical therapy choose not to pursue treatment, leaving them in a constant state of discomfort, pain, and limited range of motion. With OneStep, you can take charge of your chronic pain with this clinician-approved physical therapy solution that runs entirely on your smartphone, all from the comfort of your home.

Improve Your Move With OneStep Digital Physical Therapy

At its core, OneStep is an app that continuously analyzes the way that you move in order to provide you with a recovery plan that is tailored to you and can be modified based on your day-to-day performance. Any time you have the app active and your phone on you, the app analyzes the way you walk and provides you with insights about your stance, step length, asymmetry, and over 30 other parameters. It will comes together to help you improve the way you move your body.

OneStep's technology is equivalent to that typically offered in a professional motion lab setting, where a patient’s gait (i.e., the way a person walks), is clinically analyzed after an injury or other problem related to physical movement.

Measuring gait parameters in a traditional motion lab plays a critical role for physicians as they prescribe a recovery program for patients. In addition, physical therapists rely on subjective reporting by patients about how they feel in their recovery in order to regularly modify the plan.

OneStep solves this problem by utilizing proprietary technology for assessing a wide range of gait and motion parameters, therefore offering physical therapists visibility into their patients’ objective day-to-day progress. In addition, OneStep also provides them with patients' responses to industry standard LEFS questionnaires, which are used to reflect subjective data about patients’ recovery. This allows physical therapists to make more informed decisions about their patients’ recovery plans, in a way that fits the patient’s needs and actual body movement.

The best part of using OneStep is that you can use it anywhere and anytime. Patients can access data reports on demand and also seamlessly communicate with a human physical therapist whenever they have any questions or concerns. When using the app, patients can interact with their physical therapists 24/7, either in a 1-on-1 session or via the in-app chat.

One Parameter to Rule Them All: Your Daily Walk Score

Starting with OneStep is free. As part of your 14-day trial period, you can access the entire suite of services and features, including a free professional assessment with a licensed OneStep physical therapist, access to the app's exclusive motion analysis lab, and a customized recovery plan based on your recovery goals. Your personalized recovery plan is created for you by your OneStep physical therapist and delivered in bite-sized video exercise form, which you can perform wherever you are, no matter the time of day.

For a flat monthly fee of $35, the OneStep Plus membership will allow you to enjoy access to all of the above and keep progressing along your recovery journey. A premium OneStep subscription costs $95 per month; with it comes more extensive progress reports for both you and your healthcare provider, as well as unlimited one-on-one sessions with a licensed physical therapist and additional content, tips, insights and access to regular community classes. We recommend that you choose the right plan for you at the end of your 14-day free trial once you’ve had a chance to explore the wide range of features and capabilities offered by the app.

When you download the app and register for an account, you'll be asked to answer a few simple questions about your current situation and specify your recovery goals. After doing so, you'll be matched with a certified human physical therapist who will be by your side over the term of your recovery and will ensure your recovery plan always reflects your current medical condition and is attainable given your recovery goals.

To get you started with receiving data and metrics, all you have to do is take your first 30-second walk with the app. The score you receive at the end of your first walk will serve as a benchmark for your future experience with the app. OneStep developed a unique numerical indicator that takes into account other weighted gait parameters to deliver you with a single number to reflect your daily progress. This parameter is called a Daily Walk Score. By initiating a daily walk analysis, you’ll be able to see exactly how your gait evolves with each passing day using this parameter.

Once your walking pattern has been assessed for rate, symmetry, and stride length as part of the 30-second walk analysis, you're ready to invite a certified physical therapist into the fray.

Your numbers will be taken into account during your primary assessment with your PT, who’ll use them to design an exercise regimen that is tailored for you. As you build up muscle strength and increase your range of motion, your recovery plan and exercises will be modified based on the demonstrated parameters reflected in the app.

The Science Behind OneStep

OneStep’s technology is based on scientific studies and technological capabilities. This revolutionary approach to physical therapy, which turns it into an anytime/all-the-time model, is possible thanks to the advancement in smartphone hardware.

While many other solutions require users to purchase or use an internal measurement units (IMU) wearable, OneStep harnesses the power of the smartphone’s sensors to provide the equivalent capability without requiring any additional equipment.

In addition, not only is the app capable of monitoring in-app walks, but when enabled and authorized by the user - also runs in the background to collect the data that’s relevant for gait assessment. This means that even if you are not actively exercising and just decide to visit the store or take a short walk with your dog, OneStep will be able to use this data to offer you an even more accurate reflection of your recovery progress.

Virtual Physical Therapy Designed for Your Needs and Body

From this point forward, the OneStep app will be your all-inclusive source for your daily exercise routine, recovery tips, and professional insight from the OneStep community of professionals. You can also use this virtual hub to touch base with your personal physical therapist. Schedule a meeting anytime instantly whenever you need additional assistance or support.

Whether you're recovering from total joint replacement or another injury or simply suffer from aches and pains, there are plenty of professionally-choreographed exercise routines that you can hop right into on day one of your recovery. Some of our favorite activities on our own OneStep feeds include the following:

  • Injury-related courses designed to reduce pain and inflammation
  • Pre-op routines meant to strengthen your body for a speedy recovery
  • Balance and core routines, perfect for strengthening the body and improving your range of motion

In between workouts, you'll also be able to check out the OneStep content library. It's full of articles on injury prevention, lifestyle, new technology relevant to your success, and more tips, tricks, and physician-approved advice than you'll be able to read on your own time.

Real-time feedback is another huge aspect of this physical recovery program—as you progress, your achievements will be monitored and used to adapt your daily routine to be more challenging and more effective. Just like with your first gait analysis, OneStep is able to help you improve your form as you master each move, guaranteeing your results and putting you on the fast track to full physical recovery.

One of the most exciting features that OneStep has to offer is progress reports on every parameter that the app evaluates you for. These progress reports are another valuable tool at your personal therapist's disposal, and they allow him or her to track how well you're doing objectively and continue to up the ante whenever you start to plateau.

Why Is Gait Analysis Important?

Analyzing a patient's gait, or walk pattern, gives your physical therapist a candid and concrete glimpse into the state of your body and the characteristics of your current range of motion. According to OneStep Clinic Manager Stephanie DeShano Wakeman, D.PT:

"Each time my patient records a walk, I have a window into their daily function. The technology from OneStep delivers gait data that allows me to make informed, personalized decisions about exercise prescription and objective outcomes of the treatment plan. OneStep is the only remote patient monitoring platform designed for functional outcome measures that has the potential to identify the needs for specific interventions and motivates patients to walk more and walk better."

Each round up report on your performance within the OneStep app will be used by your PT to continuously refine your recovery program; these are real data insights that help them see exactly where you stumble, as well as where you excel.

OneStep is unique because it's able to take a snapshot of your gait and stride in your regular, everyday life, as opposed to doing so in a sterile lab setting where the analysis is only true for one point in time. Every single walk that you take with OneStep in your pocket contributes to the picture of your recovery journey as a whole.

Objective changes in things like gait consistency and even simple exertion will be easy for both you and your physical therapist to spot, making solving any problems impeding your progress extremely straightforward. You're well on your way to a brand new way of living.