Development of Pressure Sensor Based Dementia and Fall Prevention Program for Older Adults

"The fall and dementia prevention exercise is designed as a combination of balancing and cognitive exercise and games that is conducted as a group activity. The session will be provided three times per week for six weeks for a pilot test and three times per week for 12 weeks for a main comparison study.~The fall prevention exercise involves the pressure mat based balancing exercise such as side stepping, heel or toe standing, and quarter squat. The safety bar will be placed around the mat, so that older adults with instability can hold while they follow the movements.~The cognitive exercise will concise of multiple types of cognitive tasks to train memory, numeric processing, spatial perception, and logical thinking. For example, memory task such as memorizing the series of positions on the screen and use the mat to point the positions in the right order.~At the end, older adults play games in which they use balancing movements and cognitive tasks to gain scores for their team."