Healthy Aging Starts with Knowing Where You Stand
Most health screenings look at one or two things. The Vital 8 looks at the bigger picture — assessing your health across multiple interconnected domains to identify your strengths, catch emerging changes early, and give you a personalized plan to protect your independence, energy, and quality of life.
Whether you are in your 40s and want to get ahead of changes, in your 60s and noticing shifts, or beyond — the Vital 8 meets you where you are.
Schedule Your Vital 8 Assessment!
What Is the Vital 8?
The Vital 8 is a comprehensive, evidence-based framework that assesses your health across eight core domains of healthy aging — including physical health, brain and sensory health, psychosocial health, environmental safety, and more.
Rather than looking at one area in isolation, it examines how your body, brain, daily routines, environment, and lifestyle factors work together — because that is how aging actually works. A single number or a single test cannot capture the full picture. The Vital 8 was designed to connect the dots across the areas that matter most.
Each domain was selected based on research showing its direct impact on independence, safety, and quality of life as we age. The assessment incorporates advanced technology — including a clinically validated system developed by international researchers with over 25 years of study in muscle health and vitality — that measures not just how strong you are, but how well your muscles sustain effort and how quickly they fatigue.
The Vital 8 is not a diagnostic test. It is a proactive screening that reveals where you are thriving, where emerging risks may exist, and what specific steps you can take — before problems develop.
What Happens During the Assessment?
The Vital 8 Assessment is conducted by a licensed occupational therapist and takes approximately one to two hours. It can be completed in your home or in our clinic — whichever is most comfortable and convenient for you.
Before the assessment, you will complete a brief intake form so we understand your daily routines, your priorities, and what matters most to you. This is not a medical history form — it is a conversation starter that helps us see your life through your eyes.
During the assessment, your therapist will guide you through a series of evidence-based screenings across all eight core domains. These are practical, noninvasive, and designed to fit into a single session. Some screenings involve hands-on activities. Others are brief questionnaires. Together, they build a comprehensive picture of your health that no single test could provide on its own.
What Happens After?
Your results are organized into three clear zones — green, yellow, and red — so you immediately know where your strengths are, where emerging risks may exist, and where to focus first.
Based on your individual results, you receive a personalized action plan with specific, evidence-informed recommendations. Your plan is not a generic checklist. Every recommendation is built from the interaction between your personal health, your environment, and the activities that matter most to you — because no single factor tells the whole story.
Recommendations may include:
– Strategies you can start on your own right away
– Areas where therapy, exercise, or lifestyle changes may help
– Referrals to the right professionals when indicated — such as physical therapy, pelvic health therapy, pharmacy review, nutrition support, mental health services, or your primary care provider
This is not a report that sits in a drawer. It is a starting point for action — and we walk through every recommendation with you so you know exactly what it means and what to do next.
Built on Science, Designed for Real Life
The Vital 8 Framework was developed by Home Therapy Solutions in collaboration with the University of North Dakota’s Department of Geriatrics and their Dakota Geriatrics program. Its foundational research was completed as a doctoral capstone project through UND’s occupational therapy program and was accepted for presentation at both the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and the American Geriatrics Society (AGS).
The framework is grounded in:
– The World Health Organization’s approach to healthy aging and intrinsic capacity
– The Age-Friendly Health Systems 4Ms — What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility
– Established rehabilitation science models that examine how people, environments, and daily activities interact to shape health and independence
It was intentionally built with strengths-based language that focuses on what you can do — not what you have lost. Every part of the assessment, from the questions
