I find that my ability to remember people’s names and other details in daily life much more easily then in the past. This is important to me because of my job as a lay minister I deal with several people every day. Remembering their names is important to them and to me. To them it means that they are important to me, and for me it makes my job easier.

On June 10, 2010, my wife of 44 years had surgery to remove a tumor from her brain which was the size of a golf ball. After that she underwent six weeks of radiation to her brain and has been on a monthly regimen of Chemo Pills called Temodar ever since. As a result of all of this she lost a fair amount of mental function in the areas of short-term memory, calculation skills, logical processing capability such as you experience in doing mathematical story problems, and the ability to process multiple instructions.

Time constraints and pressure became her enemy. For a period of about two to three months I requested of her doctors that she be given occupational therapy aimed at improving these issues to whatever extent possible. After asking and pushing her doctors without success, I decided to do a search of the Internet with the hope of finding some help for these issues. After spending at least twelve to fifteen hours running down blind alleys, I happened upon Dakim BrainFitness.

From there, I spent several more hours researching every source I could to learn as much as I could about the program. Further, I have one daughter who has her PhD. in Psychology and another who works in a technical capacity within a large hospital. I asked both of them to find out what they could first hand from other professionals who are their peers and whose opinions they trusted (doctors, clinicians, etc.). They both got back to me with nothing but positive words that they had received. Additionally, my daughter, the psychologist, did her own research of the program. Having theirs and their peers’ seals of approval, I decided to purchase the program.

The results: In few words, nothing but excellent and significant improvement in my wife’s capabilities. So much so, that her Oncologist had taken note and asked us the name of the program. She said that she was going to do a little checking of her own and likely would suggest it to her patients who have suffered similar losses. While my wife has a long way to go in her recovery of capabilities lost, she has made this comeback to the extent that she has due in large part to the frequent use of the [Dakim] BrainFitness program in conjunction with keeping a very positive attitude. She is a fighter and is relentlessly doing everything she can think of to not let this set back get her down. You know the old saying: She’s working hard at "making lemonade out of lemons".

Probably the two best things we like about this program are; 1) the variety of the types of exercises injected with humor making it more fun than drudgery, and 2) the way that the exercises progressively increase in their challenge, while not totally overpowering and demoralizing her.

Needless to say, I am totally sold on the program and am so thankful that it exists and for what it has done to help my wife in trying to get as much of those lost capabilities back as possible.

I love the Dakim brain fitness program. The content is fun and varying. It provides ideas for improving memory and names. I really look forward to the program each day.

I think the narrator is engaging. And I like the music and graphics. It is a great product.

I really am excited about this program. It is a very delightful way of keeping one’s mind active across a variety of activities.

Occasionally, I have a problem with attempting to move along quicker than my fingers can respond and I end up making unintentional errors. Another difficulty I have is when I am asked some long-term memory facts on items that were never a part of my knowledge base.

The strategies that are taught to assist one in remembering a series of items or unrelated facts are very helpful and can easily be applied outside of the program in daily living situations. The items that involve critical thinking skills have been particularly helpful to me as these are situations that I am not challenged by in normal daily living.

I absolutely love the program and am so happy that I have this opportunity to keep my brain active. I am also glad that I was able to purchase the program at a reduced price because, being on a fixed income below the poverty level, I could not have afforded the full price.

I usually try to work on it once a day. So far, I have missed only one day when my computer was inoperable. My computer has had some problems which may have interfered with the continuity of the program. I am also applying the opportunities made available to keep track of my personal progress. This is a great aspect of the overall program because I continually attempt to do better each day.

I absolutely love using the Dakim program. In fact, when we went to Australia to visit our son and daughter-in-law, I made sure to bring my Dakim disc along so I could use it there! And I brought my laptop to Florida on a trip, just so I could do the Dakim program and I plan on bringing it to Montana next month when I visit my brother and sister (both in their 70’s) so they can see it as well. I know they will get a kick out of it.

Having recently retired from 33 years as a School Social Worker, I find that although I do love the quiet and calm of my new life, I miss the mental challenges and quick thinking needs that existed on the job. Using Dakim regularly helps speak to that need. I spoke to another retiree about that benefit and he said he did miss those mental challenges of the work place and was going to look into your program. I’ve also noticed that I am remembering numbers better... as in looking up an item in the index of the book, I am more apt to remember the page numbers. (Hmm.... the Mambo game!) I’ve noticed as well that the "Odd Couples" exercise has helped with recall. And too, I pay more attention to detail in a visual field and am thinking that the puzzle exercise must help with that.

I very much like the variety of exercises and that it changes day to day. Yet I like the structure of the routine as in always starting with the calendar and a fact about the date. I find myself referring to those facts in conversation as in recently saying to a friend: "Did you know that today was Dr. Seuss’s birthday?" To which she replied: " I wondered why there was a display of his books in the library!"

Has your team thought about adapting this for an I-Pad? Always a new challenge, right?

Thanks so much for the hours of hard work you are doing to make this a reality. I for sure am going to keep it up.

I have not had the program long enough to experience a significant change. I do notice the program getting more difficult and am wondering how much change you have applied since I started.

I have been enjoying Dakim BrainFitness. It makes me feel good to see some of the scores I have been earning. The exercises are fun and, I believe, are keeping my mind active. Of course, I am also a freelance writer. Writing is a passion of mine and writing articles and other written material most every day also helps keep my mind sharper.

I believe the Dakim BrainFitness course to be extremely worthwhile for senior citizens. As for myself, I had a sister with Alzheimer’s and when she died at age 90 she had no knowledge of who she was or who her family members were. I am striving to prevent that happening to me, if at all possible. My husband is also doing the Dakim BrainFitness exercises and is doing quite well with it, I think.

This was a great idea on your part. Thanks.

What I have had difficulty with is that when moving from one question to another the curser moves and when I am ready to select the correct answer it hits a wrong answer before I can move it away. So each day I get one or two answers incorrect on the first try.

It may be a user error, but when I’m caught up in the next question, my first thought isn’t where my curser may be.

To begin with, the experience has been a good one ... usually fun and very helpful. At other times (when my performance was not the best), it was a little discouraging. The reason for this is that some of the programs are a little difficult to figure out. Those programs are "My Favorite Things" ... "Traditional Game Calculations."

Even though I have trouble getting the correct answer for some of the programs, they are challenging. The other programs are always fun to do. I look forward to the time when I can sit down and do the Dakim program.

Some of the programs listed in my flyer have not been part of my experience: none of the three listed ("Identify and Reward," "Flashcard People," "First Name Basis"), nor "Matching Silhouettes" ... "Hidden Figures"..."Misused Words" ... "Illustrated Sentences" ... "The Journal of Rare and Useful Words" ... "Situation Specific Actions and Objects" ... "Sort It Out" ... "Animal Groups." That’s a long list, but the titles do seem to be fun to do. I look forward to being to use them.

I especially like the following programs: "Phoenician Decoder," all of the "Oral Spelling Test" list ... "Odd Couples"..."Famous People Little Known Facts" ... "Picture Pairs" ... "Make a Story" ... "Mazie’s Face Finder"..." Memory Mambo" ... "Word Wager".

It certainly takes your staff a lot of time to develop these programs. They must have quite an imagination!

As a result of doing the Dakim program, I have at times suddenly realized that I can more easily remember pieces of information I need. That is really satisfying. I do consider myself an organized person; however, I think the Dakim program has helped me improve in this regard.

Thank you for this program.

I just said to my wife last night what a neat program this was, and I was thinking about writing to tell you. My wife has MCI and I have Parkinson’s Disease. We do the program together five nights a week. It is just long enough to be challenging without being tedious. The level of difficulty stays in a range that we can manage. There is a good variety of different types of challenges (math, visual, verbal...). I do not know if our memory is improving but this is the kind of activity "the experts" say is good for our brains. I am not inclined to praise products, but I really think you have done a great job.

It will be my pleasure to tell you how much I enjoy the wonderful game of Dakim. I live at an Independent Retirement Community, Parkway Place, and had the good fortune of being asked if I would like to try Dakim. I think that was a little over a year ago. Our program was set up in our library, which also has four computers and a printer. After playing Dakim for about a month and being annoyed with background noise, I asked the employee in charge if they could get better ear phones to cut out some of the background noise. Decided to ask Dakim, so when I check on the Internet, I ended up talking to one of your salesmen, Richard Sill. He gave me a web site. Parkway Place was not interested in spending more money and I found out from Richard that I could buy my own Software. After several more months, I decided to give myself a Birthday present of Dakim Software. Would you believe, it actually arrived on my birthday, June 21, 2010 and there you were with a cake with candles.

Since then, I have played at least once a day and sometimes twice. I have learned a lot of things I had forgotten and also some things that I never knew. I love all of the challenges, even the ones that I actually guess. I didn’t have a chance to go to college, but was a high school honor student and was fortunate to be married to a wonderful husband for 50 years, who had a chance to go to VA Tech on the GI bill, graduate at the head of his class to become an Electrical Engineer (he would have loved Dakim and I know would have scored a lot higher than I do, but I know he is happy that Dakim found me). I’m an avid jigsaw puzzler, so I always get those right and I’m even getting better at some of the math problems. I love Name that Song, usually get those right, Make A Story, surprised at how many capitals I remember. I love Famous People/Little Known Facts. Really enjoy Phoenician Decoder. I really love the word games, Anagrams, Blankety-Blank, Phunny Phrases and Scrambled Letters.

When any of my three children or 8 grandchildren come to visit, they love it when I demonstrate Dakim to them. I think I have encouraged quite a few here at Parkway Place to get on the list. Some enjoy it more than others.

Besides my jigsaw puzzles, my computer is my best friend. I make all my Christmas cards, love making Birthday cards, and even make pictures and sayings for our four elevators.

I feel blessed to know Richard Sill and now you are added to the list. Keep up the good work.

Most Sincerely,

Ella Felton (88 years young)

This is a wonderful program. My memory is far from perfects but it is better particularly when I use some of the techniques.

I did have some program problems several weeks ago and am happy to report that Jon and Will were very and promptly helpful.

My wife has a copy also on her computer and uses it regularly.

The program is a blessing to us who are in our mid eighties.

Although at this point, I have only "played" 6-7 times, I do find it to be fun and stimulating. I am 76 years old and think I do have some memory lapses beyond what I should. I am hopeful continued use of the BrainFitness will help me to bridge that gap some. It has made me more aware that my calculation abilities appear to be diminished and I was not aware of that...I always considered that to be one of my long suits! Will work harder on that. It is fun and I do enjoy working with the DBF. Will keep you posted, (I hope).

I always look forward to playing Dakim every night. I enjoy every moment of it. The activities are fun and at the same time very challenging. I learn a lot from it. I wasn’t able to remember so many words at one time, but now I can look at the words and remember them. What is interesting for me is making a story out of the words so as to remember them. ALL the activities are great and a lot of fun. I look forward to playing it above everything else that I do for fun. My memory has greatly improved just by playing the Dakim games.

I am using the system myself. I don’t see much improvement but my scores are pretty high. I’m using it for maintenance and to improve my short-term memory. I like the system so far, but I do have a couple comments. I notice that it tells me to just guess when I don’t know. But when I guess in the Calculation part and accidently guess right when I don’t know the answer, the next one is the same level or harder. If I guess right, the program doesn’t know that I really don’t know and can’t do the calculation in the allowed amount of time. So is that the way it works?? And the videos don’t play but I haven’t had a chance to call technical support yet. So I’m not disappointed in the program, I enjoy it. I love playing games, so it’s right up my alley and exercises all the specific areas the brain.

I play Dakim almost every morning and enjoy doing so. Sometimes, I think they do not give you enough time to figure things out and he says to take a guess. I need a little more time and I can come up with the correct answer, but I often "guess" wrong. I find the math problems the most challenging, the football, baseball, bowling, racing etc. by the numbers. I often do not understand how they come up with the correct answer. I do not particularly like the ones where they put in a new picture and then ask you to locate the one that was replaced and now back.

In general, I believe it is a great way to keep one’s mind sharp. I am not too good with music as I have a "tin ear" so do not enjoy naming the song they are playing. All in all, I do enjoy it almost every morning and recommend it highly.

Have enjoyed the challenges to my memory. Once in a while I disagree with the answers and/or queries, as I did this evening. I have been keeping my score on a chart since November and enjoying the games.

We bought the program for my husband Roger. Then I wanted to do the exercises myself so bought a program for my use.

We both enjoy the program very much and we both play daily. And, sometimes, twice a day. Quite interesting to see how we do, some days quite well, and other days have quite modest scores.

Brain fitness is such a quantitative area, that we cannot say for sure how much improvement we have at this point in time. However, we can say, that we feel we have not lost ground and that is a good thing.

Since we are both firm believers in physical exercise, it makes sense to use the Dakin program for brain fitness.

We would recommend Dakin Fitness Program to others. Dakin was brought to our attention through one of our other Buckner campuses in Houston.

Your staff is courteous and helped with the minor problem we had. They understand that seniors are smart, but not necessarily "up to speed" with computers.

I purchased this for my husband as he’s starting to experience Alzheimer’s and he says it’s working very well and he likes the challenges; however, since he’s only a few weeks into the program he tells me that there is no improvement in memory. He tells me that some of the sentence structure portion of the exercise is a little difficult as you progress. He assumes that that is to be expected and the reason for the exercise. Even though he tells me that he can’t see any progress, I can, and I believe that he will keep using this program. He does like the exercise drills. He also tells me that he likes this a lot better than playing solitaire all day – boring and this is not.

I love to play Dakim BrainFitness. I play on the average 4-5 times a week. Some weeks I play every day. I am 77 years old. I have found that it has helped me a lot. My daughter bought it for me. I look forward to playing it. It makes me think. I find that some days I do better than others. I keep a journal and look back to compare on the days to see what has happened. I also keep track of the time of day to see if that makes a difference. Thanks so much for inventing this "game" for us old folks.

I believe this program to be very helpful. However, this material is dated for TBI (war veterans and others like me). It truly is not measuring my long-term memory. You may want versions based on age. Also an explanation of math problems if a person needs them or how can we improve?

This is a tremendous product! I am slightly under the target age group for Dakim, but still find it both fun and useful. I do a lot of crossword puzzles, but agree that Dakim BrainFitness does indeed utilize a much wider range of brain functions. My wife got this for me, and now she enjoys playing it also.

Thanks for the effort that must have gone into making such a great product!

My wife and I first discovered the Dakin system in Sarasota FL at their Senior Center last May. We purchased our home pc based system soon after. I am 74 and my wife is 73—we have been married 52 years!

We both play every day. My score has increased from the 50’s to the 70’s and 80’s. My wife has always done well, usually in the high 80’s and in the 90’s, (but today she had a 64!). We have both learned how to associate things to improve our memory. I am good at math and history so I help her and she is good at spelling and ways to relate/associate things and she helps me. In helping each other, we get less frustrated with each other when we forget things and we understand each other better—we may reinforce each other’s memory issues with each other too, now that we understand it is helpful and not taken as a complaint. Sometimes we discuss ways we can do better and that is helpful. We really love the system, the artwork and presentation is the very best! We like the variety of issues presented and even the scoring system. We have definitely improved in all of the areas and continue to apply those techniques to our everyday living.

On the minus side, when we purchased this system we were told we would soon be able to add another player. If my wife scores in the 90’s then, if I play next, the difficulty factor for me is high "for where I am". In the same way if I score low, her next play she will score in the high 90’s. Maybe it all works out over time but we would REALLY like for each of us to have our own "difficulty" factor so we can better track how we are doing.

Your office keeps saying we will soon be able to add another player but "soon" never comes. You need to work on that! We have noted the additional features you have made so we know it is being worked on.

We have demoed the system to all our friends and we are on a ’Health" committee at our Church. (We have friends at Winter Park Methodist Church and they bought your multi player system because we introduced it to them—check it out.) Now we are trying to get our own Church to buy one and to have an on-going system for the members. I have funded the purchase, but haven’t "sold" the system to the "committee". But it will happen! We may need to use a demo system for a month or two, if you can provide that.

We have also informed your people of various operating and visual issues we have experienced while using the system and they have cleaned them up, although I still see a small "edge or ghost" of the "green button" in the lower left corner from time to time. From time to time there are also some operational errors but have not seen them long enough to explain it to your people.

Anyway, we like your system—very professional—and we have gained a lot from it both personally, as a couple, and as a member of the community. I forgot to mention that I also have improved my method of keeping my golf score as I play and not depending on my partner to do it

The list goes on..........

Thanks for asking. And don’t compromise your quality!

It’s like going into an exercise room for their brain... and its fun. And that’s the only way you’re going to get folks to continue using their brain. It’s a lot more fun than doing the crossword puzzle or Sodoku. It’s different every day.

It was easy to set up. Being a speech pathologist by background, I’ve seen an excellent variety of cognitive exercises. I doesn’t just focus in on one type of exercise... it exercises many parts of the brain.

What’s great about Dakim is they’ve thought this through. There’s no keyboard. There’s no mouse. It’s all touch screen, so it’s very easy for the residents to operate. Another great thing is they actually upload new information constantly, so it gives the resident a new experience each time. Our residents go regularly. They really, really enjoy it. It’s a great selling tool as well. I’m really pleased with it.

We’ve seen such a tremendous improvement in their quality of life... with people beginning to talk for the first time in 2 years. Dakim has definitely helped us increase our market share.

The great thing about Dakim BrainFitness...It helps to build new connections in the brain at any age. This is so much fun, that it just gets you hooked on it and you want to do it every day.

Our company focus is on maintaining the health, wellness, dignity and independence of each resident; and we recognize that maintaining one’s cognitive health is a very important aspect of successful aging. Dakim’s program is unique in it’s ability to address the brain fitness needs of each resident individually, and over the past year our residents have reported that the program has made a real difference with their memory abilities. The expansion of the program is logical given the outcomes, and yet another reason why BMA continues to be a leading innovator in affordable senior housing.

We have seen improved memory upon annual care conference review...of course one would have to take all life factors (changes, medications etc) into consideration here, but the fact remains some improvement has been noted. Another benefit to the machine is the fact that residents are able to use it independently. This makes a great difference in their interest in keeping themselves sharp; they feel they have some control over their situation. They do feel the self esteem results that come from keeping your brain and body fit and, of course, they report feeling much sharper all day if they start off challenging and achieving! This continues to result in positive results to the resident, of course. It is also good to note that at times residents have other health matters and /or concerns and at these times the Dakim offers that routine to their day that they so need to feel in control of their lives, despite their health concerns at the time. We count the Dakim brain machine as a great asset to our facility and we look forward to a long relationship with your company.