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Today, the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI), in collaboration with Baycrest Health Sciences, announced the grant recipients of $1.4 million in funding through its Spark Program. The 2017 SPARK program provides 31 point-of-care workers in the North American health care delivery or service industry with up to $50,000 each in funding to further develop their grassroots ideas into proof-of-concept or prototypes that have the potential to improve brain health or quality of life for older adults. After an extensive evaluation process, we are excited to announce that we were successful in being awarded funding for two of our programs! One of our projects is “Home-based virtual reality training program for individuals with mild cognitive impairment”. People with mild cognitive impairment are at risk of further decline and face a lack of treatment options. The health benefits of physical exercise are well-documented and cognitive exercise may be beneficial as well. We are pioneering the use of non-immersive virtual reality games to engage people with mild cognitive impairment to exercise mind and body. Our project will also explore the feasibility of moving virtual reality training from clinic to home. With our industry partner, Remotronic, our other project utilizes an intelligent mobile and web-based alerts application to help detect and prevent falls in the long-term care setting. Falling is a serious concern for many seniors and thus for all long-term care homes. Almost half of long-term care residents will experience a fall at least once a year and the result of these falls can be disastrous. We are testing a new application that alerts care staff when a fall happens and has the potential to identify early warning signs. Ultimately, through the support of CC-ABHI and its funders, we hope this innovation can be developed to have a significant impact quality of life for older adults in Canada. We also acknowledge the generous funding provided by the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science, and by the Government of Canada through the Public Health Agency of Canada, and by the Baycrest Foundation, which enables CC-ABHI to administer the Spark Program. For more information on the Spark Program visit www.ccabhi.com, or join the social media conversation by using the hashtag #ccabhispark.
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