New technology helps improve lives of people living with dementia
Roughly 50 million people are living with the disease worldwide, according to the WHO
Tover founder and CEO Hester Anderiesen Le Riche on new technology that helps to improve the lives of dementia patients.
Health care technology company Tover hopes to improve the lives of dementia patients, especially as isolation made things worse during the coronavirus pandemic, the CEO and founder Anderiesen Le Riche told FOX Business’ "Mornings with Maria" Friday.
Roughly 50 million people are living with the disease worldwide, which deteriorates memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to perform everyday activities mainly in older people, according to the World Health Organization.
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ANDERIESEN LE RICHE: So Tovertafel was indeed a technology to improve the quality of life of people living with dementia. Tover, that's Dutch for meditable and we project light animations on the table. So we can create from every single dining table, we can create serious games and a playful environment to really boost the level of quality of life and, and the interaction between people and with carers.
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So we've got a device that we mount from the ceiling and we use [a] sensor to detect hand movements. We have a projector that creates the light animations, and in that way you can play with light and we make use of very recognizable artifacts, images. So, for example, a very recognizable beach ball that we throw at each other or we create puzzles or certain images that all re-evoke or evoke memories from the past to have something to talk to, something recognizable, that very much boost people's confidence.
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So people with dementia, it is very important to stay active. And as they struggle to reactivate or activate themselves, they need interaction to feel emotions, to have conversations, to be physically engaged. And if you're isolated, there's very little stimulation from your environment so that we know that empathy fast tracks the degeneration of the brain. And that is what happened in the pandemic.