News - Television

ABC Ahead of the Curve

John Wang, reporter

There is a new high tech device to help people, particularly seniors, keep their minds sharp. It’s called [m]Power, and it was developed by Dan Michel and Dakim Incorporated. Dan Michel is here with us today.

Dan, this was a very personal project for you.

Yes, it is. My dad had Alzheimer’s disease for 13 years and I observed that when he was cognitively stimulated he was more with it, he was a happier camper and it seemed to translate into other activities of his life. So, I began a mission to create something that could provide good cognitive stimulation but also work within the real world of long-term care where care providers are overburdened and overstressed to begin with.

So It’s self-contained, it is in a self-contained computer with a touch screen. Let’s get started.

Sure.

It’s got a long introduction and you can talk about it as the introduction begins.

Sure, This is a camera that is able to identify users so they can start their own sessions. It takes a picture of them as they press that button you just pressed and it recognizes them and allows them to begin their session on their own. The exercises exercise across 6 cognitive domains including; long term memory, short term memory, language, computation, visio-spacial and critical thinking. And we also have 5 levels of challenge appropriate for people with normal brain function all the way down to those with moderate dementia. The system self-adjusts across all the cognitive domains and levels of difficulty during each session. So again users can start the session by themselves and most users can do the session by themselves. That makes the [m]Power very simple and easy for the care provider and the users themselves.

The other important thing that we have done is we have tried to make every one of these exercises so much fun that seniors are going to want to do them over the long haul, and that is truly the only way that cognitive stimulation is of real value. It has to be something we do for the rest of our lives.

So when it started it reminded us what day it is, it gives us a little history fact of the day.

A little factoid orients us to the present and then goes on to various activities. Let’s look at this one; this is Famous People and Little Known Facts. This is a short term memory exercise, which is made fun by the fact that it is based on famous people and little known facts.

Does it matter which one we try here? Oh, oh, I see here, it’s walking us through this. And again this is something that is going to be easy. You want it to be challenging to stimulate but not too hard to frustrate.

If you frustrate people they will quit, become fearful and never come back, so it always keeps you at a level that is adequate for stimulation, adequate challenge but not something so difficult they become frustrated. So now you are going to be asked to remember these various combinations and then in a moment we will come back and test you on them.

And this is something that people can do on their own. But it can also be done with the help of a care worker.

Absolutely, and it can also be done as we are doing it today plugged into a large screen TV and used as a group activity as well but it’s most beneficial for individual use.

And this is all self-contained so you don’t have to worry about getting onto the internet, you don’t have to worry about internet connections and that sort of stuff.

It needs to be connected to the internet for a few hours each evening during which we download new activities and exercises. High functioning seniors will never see the same exercises twice, you will never see this again.

We also upload the user information and download it back. So, if in a long term care setting they have a group of [m]Power units, through the wireless network or through their network your files are available on every unit.

You can start tomorrow; you can use this one today and use any other one the next day. It will know exactly what you’ve seen and exactly what your levels are and will start you in the right place.

It can tell or remember weather you had trouble with some of these exercises or weather you were zipping through them.

Absolutely. It will record every interaction including the speed with which you respond, as well as what you got right and what you got wrong. It notices changes in your performance. It can be programmed, with the users permission, to actually notify a caregiver of that change, which could indicate that you’ve had a series of small strokes or you may be having an adverse drug interaction. Getting intervention on those quickly is important.

Let’s see…Who produced more than 100 self-portraits? That was Rembrandt.

I wasn’t paying attention. I wouldn’t have gotten that. Very well, how much is this?

For long term care providers the cost is $6,000 for the unit and $1,200 per year for a subscription. They can register 12 users per [m]Power. The lease is 3 years, generally, and over the three years if they use it as recommended, which is 12 users per [m]Power using it 5 times a week, the cost comes down to only about a dollar a session.

Terrific!

So it’s very affordable.

It sounds like a really great product to help you keep sharp and stay sharp.

Absolutely.