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At the 2025 National Council on Aging (NCOA) Age+Action Conference, leaders from across the aging space gathered with one shared mission: to help older adults age with dignity, safety, and independence. From housing and nutrition to mobility and policy, the challenges are real — but so are the opportunities.
At the conference, OneStep’s own Stephanie Wakeman, PT, DPT, shared a poster on a concept that’s gaining momentum across senior care: gait as a vital sign. More than just a measure of how someone walks, gait offers a window into overall health — revealing early signs of decline and helping predict what might come next.
A Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
The aging population in the U.S. is growing, but mobility is shrinking.
- Only 13.9% of adults over 65 meet recommended physical activity levels.
- 90% want to age in place — but without mobility, that independence slips away.
- The consequences? Falls. Hospitalizations. Functional decline. Depression. Loss of autonomy.
And the harsh reality is: by the time a fall happens, it’s often too late.
Gait, Risk, and Real-World Outcomes
Mobility is more than movement — it’s predictive.
Every 0.1 m/s decrease in gait speed increases mortality risk by 12%, and cardiovascular risk by 8%. Gait speeds below 0.8–1.0 m/s are tied to higher fall risk and lower survival rates. This means that even minor changes in gait have a significant impact that, if overlooked, can lead to devastating outcomes.
But here’s the problem: subtle changes are often missed. Why? Because most gait assessments happen in snapshots — not continuously, during everyday life where real mobility happens. If a patient walks differently at home than in the clinic, you won’t see it. And when change happens gradually, observation alone won’t catch it.
Measuring Movement with the Most Accessible Tool
Today, gait can be measured passively, precisely — and at scale — using just a smartphone.
OneStep’s technology harnesses smartphone IMUs (inertial measurement units) to turn any walk into clinical insight. With over 10 billion gait cycles analyzed, we’ve built one of the most comprehensive mobility datasets in healthcare.
The result? Organizations using OneStep see up to a 23% reduction in falls, just by monitoring gait in real life. Stephanie’s presentation focused on two key findings from senior living communities using OneStep:
- Residents with gait speeds <0.6 m/s were twice as likely to fall compared to peers above that threshold.
- OneStep’s Fall Risk Score consistently aligned with historical fall rates in skilled nursing residents — validating its use as a real-time predictor, not just a retrospective measure.
In short: real-world gait data doesn’t just explain what happened. It shows what’s coming — and gives care teams the time to intervene.
The Value for Senior Living
For senior care operators, gait insights aren’t just clinical. They’re operational and financial.
- Fewer falls mean fewer emergency interventions and lower liability.
- Enhanced independence supports aging-in-place goals.
- Objective data boosts care quality, supports audits, and enables reimbursement.
- Stronger engagement leads to more referrals — and measurable ROI.
One partner saw up to 11x return on investment through proactive mobility monitoring and referral capture. Check out the full case study here.
Conversations from the Conference: What We Heard
Stephanie’s insights didn’t just inform — they ignited thoughtful discussion.
Healthcare leaders voiced concern over looming budget cuts to essential aging programs — from fall prevention to exercise classes. The tension is palpable: these programs work, but they’re often underfunded because they lack the hard data policymakers demand.
As one expert put it:
"We've been talking about fall prevention for a decade now, yet very little has changed."
The problem isn’t passion — it’s proof.
What’s missing is the long-term, objective evidence that senior care organizations need to justify investment and capture impact. Without it, preventive programs are too often seen as cost centers rather than value drivers — even though they reduce falls, hospitalizations, and downstream costs.
In a climate of shrinking budgets and increased scrutiny, organizations need data that speaks the language of ROI — not just good intentions. That means showing how mobility programs impact clinical outcomes, reimbursement, quality metrics, and long-term care costs — with hard numbers, not anecdotes.
That’s exactly where OneStep fits in.
By turning everyday movement into clinical-grade data, OneStep gives organizations a way to measure outcomes continuously, objectively, and in real life.
It creates the kind of evidence senior advocates have long been asking for — and provides actionable insights to make those programs more targeted, more proactive, and ultimately, more defensible.
The Next Step in Aging with Dignity
The mission of the NCOA — and of everyone at Age+Action — is about more than safety. It’s about agency.
OneStep is proud to support that mission, providing tools that give care teams foresight, not just hindsight. Because when you can measure movement, you can improve everything around it — from care quality to confidence, connection, and cost.
Ready to take the next step in delivering smarter, safer care? Let’s talk.
