News - Television

NBC4 Washington DC

I.J. Hudson, Tech Reporter

October 12, 2006

It's a complete computer - just a touch screen, no keyboard or mouse. It runs on Linux.

Michel came up with the idea while playing games with his dad, who suffered from Alzheimer's. He found to be successful, working the brain needed to be fun: “The exercises are so much fun that seniors actually want to do them. The cognitive exercise, to be of real benefit, it has to be something that the seniors engage in regularly over the rest of their life," says Michel.

Michel uses age-appropriate multi-media - old movies and songs, art, to exercise different brain functions, including long and short-term memory, language, critical thinking - 5 levels of each. If the mind is still in good shape, the content is updated every night over a broadband connection. Difficulty levels change with the person's abilities.

"The system self-adjusts in real time during each session to their abilities and their interests. People have good days and bad days. And in every situation they're always presented with exercises that are at a level of challenge that's appropriate to their abilities so they're interested and challenged and not frustrated and want to quit, " says Michel.

One demo from the Dakim website shows an old movie with Jimmy Stewart and Carol Lombard. Watch, and then answer questions after the clip.

And the exercises are done in a "polite" way. mPower calls me by name as I play - and if I choose a wrong answer Dan’s voice on the computer is reassuring. "Stick with it, this is a tough one.”

No buzzer, no "sorry, your wrong" just encouragement to keep trying. The mPower from Dakim, Inc., is available for institutional use now. A consumer model is due out next spring.

The institutional model is $6,000 plus a subscription fee. The consumer model will be much cheaper, according to Michel.