Tovertafel (meaning ‘Magic Table’ in Dutch), a system that projects interactive light animations onto any table to create games for people with moderate to severe dementia and adults with severe learning disabilities, ‘to encourage them to instinctively participate to stimulate both physical and social activity’, is now available in the UK.
It was developed by Utrecht-based games designer for people living in residential care, Active Cues, working closely with dementia care facilities, based on a concept from Dutch PhD researcher, Hester Le Riche. The system was brought to the UK by John Ramsay, a former corporate lawyer at Linklaters, who, having cared for his father whose own dementia journey started when John was just 12, co-founded socially responsible company, Shift 8, ‘to improve the lives of those living with dementia’, with friend, Mehdi Bedioui.
Active Cues describes the Tovertafel as ‘a little box that can be mounted on the ceiling, for instance, above the dining room table of a care institute’. Inside is a projector, infrared sensors, a speaker, and a processor, that work together to project the games onto the table.
Active Cues said: “Because the colourful objects respond to hand and arm movements, residents get to play with the light itself.”