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News - Radio
The [m]Power cognitive fitness systemListen to Dan Michel, CEO of Dakim, Inc. on Jacqueline Marcell's Internet radio program Coping with Caregiving, Segment # 3 discussing the [m]Power cognitive fitness system.Jacqueline Marcell, Eldercare Advocate, Author, Speaker, Radio Host February 3, 2007 Jacqueline Marcel: Welcome Dan!Dan Michel: HI Jacqueline, how are you? J: Tell all about this. This is wonderful, what inspired you? D: Well my father suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease for about 13 years and it finally was the cause of his death. My dad was a very bright, intelligent and creative individual. I watched him kind of disappear into dementia and decided that I had to do something about it. And what I’ve learned is that cognitive stimulation is a very effective intervention to help seniors preserve their brain health and their cognitive wellness. J: Yes, oh yes. I experienced that with my mom and dad and I wish I had known about it sooner. D: Absolutely. J: Now tell why seniors need to participate in a cognitive fitness program. D: Well, essentially the adverse affects of brain aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, mild cognitive impairment is really the most significant threat to their quality of life. I mean there’s no point, especially baby boomers and I’m one of them, to reach our golden years and be physically fit, have enough money to enjoy those years and find ourselves cognitively impaired so that we have no quality of life. Alzheimer’s Disease is the fastest growing disease in the developed world. Believe it or not, there is a new case of Alzheimer’s Disease every minute and seven seconds in this country. J: No kidding! I didn’t know it was that high now. My goodness! D: In fact another dimension of it is that at age 65 one in ten Americans has Alzheimer’s, by age 85 half the population is affected. J: Yes, isn’t that astonishing, we’re living longer and longer and longer. D: Absolutely, and that’s actually the good news. The bad news is the folks who are going to have Alzheimer’s who are part of my generation, the baby boomers, are expected to live twice as long with the disease than did our parents. My dad, as I said lived 13 years, imagine living 25 years with Alzheimer’s. J: Yes, and I had two parents with it, so I am really behind what you are doing. D: Thank you. J: What are the key challenges in making cognitive fitness practical though for most people? D: Well, if you are going to do it as we are doing it using a computer product, it has to first be something that is friendly to seniors. So we don’t use a mouse or keyboard. Our system, the [m]Power system, is a touch screen, all in one system so there is no mouse or keyboard. J: Oh, fabulous! D: Yes, and all of our exercises are developed for seniors so they are really interested in them. The key of course is, cognitive fitness is something like physical fitness is something that you can’t do for a short period of time and expect yourself to then be protected for the rest of your life. You can’t go to the gym for a week and do bicep curls and then say, “well I’m fit and I never have to go back to the gym again.” J: It’s ongoing. D: Yes there is no finish line. The only way for people to do cognitive fitness exercise for the rest of their life is for it to be simple, easy affordable and very entertaining and a lot of fun to do. Because if you are being entertained and you are having a lot of fun you would be willing to do it if it is practical and easy for you and simple things like a touchscreen, as our system has, that you are also willing and able to do it. J: I couldn’t agree with you more. Now, this market is growing rapidly, I’m starting to see more and more of this coming about. So tell me some of the differences between your product and some of the other ones that are out there. D: Well, I guess the things I have just described are the differences between what we do and our main competitors. That is we have worked very, very hard to engineer a product that most seniors can use by themselves without any assistance from anybody else whether or not they have ever used a computer in their life. J: So it is still on the computer but it is a touch screen. D: It’s got a touchscreen and the computer does all the heavy lifting. Meaning that there is actually a built-in camera in our [m]Power that uses facial recognition software to recognize the user. So all they have to do is touch the screen to start a session. It recognizes them; it searches the data base and then greets them by their first name and presents exercises that are absolutely appropriate for them. And then I think the second thing we have done is to make the system very cost effective, especially for senior living providers. It works out to be about a dollar a day per user session. And then of course the most important thing we have done is make it so much fun to do that seniors actually want to so it. J: Yes, It’s enjoyable… D: Yes. J: not drudgery, yes, that’s the key. D: You can’t really coerce or force seniors, or anybody else, to do something they don’t enjoy. My experience has been it’s like herding cats. You can try to do it but you won’t be able to succeed. J: (laughs) D: and you will probably get scratched in the process. J: Right. Now what do you see as the future of all this? D: Well, I do see as our culture become more and more aware of the benefits of cognitive fitness and more and more research comes out…oh, in fact today there is a story in the Wall Street Journal on cognitive fitness. There is more and more research coming out every day confirming the value of cognitive fitness. As we become more aware of this and as we become a culture more in tune with the urgency of this issue, I think the future of cognitive fitness is that it will become a mainstream part of all of our lives. J: It will just be recognized that that is what you do. You go to the gym, you eat right, and you do your cognitive fitness exercises. D: Absolutely. We have to do this because if we don’t solve this problem, the cost of Alzheimer’s Disease and other associated adverse affects of brain aging are expected to wreak economic disaster on our country. It will bankrupt Medicare and Medicade. The fact is an Alzheimer’s patient, according to Medicare, costs about four times as much as a comparable Medicare patient. J: Wow! D: So we really have to do something about it and there really isn’t a pharmacological silver bullet anywhere on the near-term horizon. This opportunity to be proactive and while our culture generally looks for the quick fix pill, as Dr. Paul Nussbaum said “The solution to this problem is not a quick fix pill but ongoing mental stimulation for the rest of our lives.” And if we make it enjoyable, it’s fun, and it’s something we want to do. J: How long are the sessions? D: Well in general, for the high functioning seniors, they do it for about half an hour everyday or about five days a week. Folks who are lower functioning do it between 15 and 20 minutes a day. J: Oh, ok, so it’s not a big chunk out of your day? D: No, and it doesn’t replace other things. This is simply on e component of an overall wellness and cognitive wellness program. In about half an hour you get a very concentrated, very rigorous cognitive workout but time flies when you are doing it because it feels like playing a game and you are competing with yourself. You are having fun so a half hour just flies by and people are just enjoying themselves. J: I just came up with your next product, a treadmill or elliptical machine with [m]Power on it. D: I will send you a picture… J: You’ve got that already? (Laughs) D: Yes, we have thought of that and we also anticipate putting these in airplanes so the TV screens that are in the backs of the seats… why shouldn’t people be exercising their minds as opposed to just wasting their time on a plane. J: Right. D: The fitness market is one of our futures. To see it in that kind of setting because it’s the baby boomers who drove the fitness market. We know that they will drive the cognitive fitness market as well. As I said we don’t expect to have driven the entire culture four our entire life times and end up in a nursing home without any quality of life. J: Absolutely, yes where the baby boomers go, so goes the rest of the nation. D: You bet! J: And we’re going to make a difference, and I’m just so glad you are doing this. D: Thank you very much! J: We’ve got about 30 seconds left, is there anything else you would like to tell people about it? D: Well I guess the only thing is, they can find out more about the [m]Power at dakim.com and they can get on our website and see exercises and learn all about the cognitive fitness system that will change the way seniors age. J: Fantastic! Thanks for being with us. D: Thank you very much Jacqueline! J: Dan Michel, and the company is Dakim. Thanks for being with us. To hear the interview please click here. The interview is available for free listening-on-demand |
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