Village Shalom has introduced a new brain fitness program to help residents combat the onset and effects of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The self-contained hardware/software systems by Dakim offer an entertaining, easy-to-use solution for providing cognitive stimulation intended to help active seniors maintain brain health.

To facilitate residents’ use of the program, “technology dens” have been installed in three locations throughout the Village Shalom campus, made possible through the generosity of the Gould Charitable Foundation and the Oppenstein Brothers Foundation.

Each technology den features a 17-inch, touch-screen computer with no mouse or keyboard, enabling use by individuals with no prior computer skills. The computers feature a wide selection of games, puzzles and other challenging cognitive activities to stimulate brain function and fitness. Virtually no caregiver assistance is required because the system recognizes users automatically and self-adjusts for ability levels ranging from active seniors to early-stage Alzheimer’s patients.

“We all know the importance of exercising our bodies to maintain our physical functioning,” said Eileen Miller, Director of Resident Services. “In recent years there has also been an emphasis on the importance of mental stimulation to reduce the risk of dementia as we age. This computer system provides a fun way to stimulate to all six cognitive domains, including short-term memory, language, computation, visuospatial orientation and critical thinking, by playing games and answering questions on a simple touch-screen computer. The program has five different difficulty levels, so it can be used by residents who represent a broad range of cognitive abilities. I’ve tried the games myself – they are fun, interactive and a little addictive.”

Zenette Kearney, an activities staff member who has been helping Village Shalom residents register for the BrainFitness program, has found that residents are surprised by how easily they can adapt to the unfamiliar territory of computer technology.

“It was unexpected,” Kearney said. “At first, residents were turning me down because they didn’t want to deal with technology, or were afraid of how difficult it would be to learn. But once they use it, they say, ‘Oh, that was fun! Can I come back and do it again?’”

In fact, they are encouraged to do it again and again. The program is most beneficial when used in 20-minute sessions three to five times a week. The computers automatically download new games and activities each night, so users encounter new mental challenges each time they log on. The activities are geared to the users’ age group, featuring quizzes about movie actors, historical events and other cultural information that their generation grew up with.

In an effort to anticipate the need for this type of program and potential usage across the campus, Village Shalom obtained 60 user slots from Dakim. Before registration actually began, the Resident Programs staff was not sure how many residents would actually take advantage of the BrainFitness program, given the technology trepidation that so many individuals had expressed. “We speculated that it would take a while to fill all 60 slots, but we hoped that as residents used the product, they would promote it to their peers,” Miller explained.

Any concerns about program enrollment, however, have been quickly dispelled. “We just started signing people up last week,” Kearney commented, “And we already have a waiting list.”