Making DDR for Seniors With Touchtown's Dancetown
Posted on Mon Jul 07 2008 07:39
This is a nice article taken from a talk Jeff Pepper delivered at the Games For Health conference in early 2007. It starts off:
In this session from the recent Games for Health conference, Jeff
Pepper, President and CEO of Touchtown, discussed his company's work in
creating Dancetown - a
PC-based dance game specifically aimed at older players and retirement
homes, to give players regular exercise and reduce the risk of falling.
Touchtown is a 9-year old company out of Pittsburgh that was
originally not a game company, but provided digital signage and TV to
retirement homes. Two years ago, Pepper's daughter came home with Dance Dance Revolution and he "got hooked".
His daughter said 'Wouldn't it be great if your customers could do
this?' But it seemed too hard for seniors, and Pepper thought "there's
no way our customers would actually use this."...
Wheels of Fitness Takes Dancetown To Canada
Posted on Tue Feb 19 2008 10:44
Our new Canadian distributors, Wheels of Fitness, have been getting quite a bit of media coverage, with features articles in both the Times Colonist and National Post (with accompanying blog post).
Competition in the Elderly Gaming Market
Posted on Tue Jan 08 2008 12:32"If you thought the Nintendo Wii didn’t have any competition in the much sought after elderly gaming market, you were mistaken. Dancetown is now trying their hand at keeping our older generation physically fit..."
See complete article
here.
20 Tips on Becoming More Physically Active in 2008
Posted on Fri Dec 28 2007 15:16
See this interesting article in seniorjournal.com, with a nice sidebar about Dancetown!
Dancetown Gets Seniors Moving
Posted on Fri Dec 14 2007 09:07Text of a TV segment on Generation to Generation, on Channel 13 Central Florida News.
Dancetown, the latest retirement home craze...
Posted on Wed Dec 12 2007 08:55Article about Dancetown in Pop City, a Pittsburgh online news and popular culture site.
Dancetown in ICAA Showroom
Posted on Tue Dec 11 2007 16:28The International Conference on Active Aging featured Dancetown in their December 2007 Showroom edition.
Dancetown on TV News
Posted on Tue Dec 11 2007 16:24KDKA TV, a local television channel in Pittsburgh PA, ran this short segment about Dancetown on December 5 2007.
Video of Residents Dancing to Dancetown
Posted on Tue Dec 11 2007 16:22See this great video of two residents of Longwood at Oakmont retirement community, using Dancetown.
Press Release
Posted on Wed Nov 28 2007 14:32
The Dancetown Fitness System: a Radical New Approach to Physical Exercise for Older Adults Combines State-of-the-Art Computer Technology and Dance
A Fun Way to Improve Balance, Reduce Risk of Osteoporosis, Promote Socialization, and Enhance Cardiovascular Fitness
Orlando, FL, November 30 2007 / Dancetown, a division of Touchtown Inc., today unveiled a revolutionary new fitness system that combines the benefits of dance and physical exercise with the fun of computer games and applies it for the first time to the over-60 market.
This innovative and groundbreaking product has the potential to transform fitness and wellness in the senior living community. The Dancetown Fitness System will improve quality of life for older adults by giving them a fresh outlook on health and a compelling, enjoyable reason to exercise.
"Dancetown is a giant step forward in our long-term commitment to serving the senior living community," said Jeff Pepper, President and CEO of Touchtown, the senior living industry’s largest provider of technology to improve quality of life. "Physical exercise is vitally important for older adults, and we’ve developed a completely new approach that makes it appealing as well as effective. Dancetown is the start of a revolution in senior wellness, and is the first product we know of that combines physical fitness, brain fitness, social interaction, and good old-fashioned fun."
Dancetown has been designed and developed with input from leading senior living and health care providers across the country, including Country Meadows Retirement Communities (Hershey, PA), CRSA (Memphis), Christian Living Communities (Denver), Presbyterian SeniorCare (Pittsburgh), and Westminster Retirement Communities (Orlando). Field trials began in October and have yielded overwhelmingly positive feedback by both retired residents and wellness staff. The system is designed for use by older adults with varying degrees of mobility and requires no previous dance experience.
Additionally, health benefits company Humana Inc. (Louisville, KY) plans to place Dancetown Fitness Systems into six senior communities across the country and research their effect on senior health. "Dancetown is a perfect way for the older generation to enhance not only their body strength and cardiovascular health but also their cognitive skills. It also provides a fun reason to come together to socialize," said Paul Puopolo, Humana’s Director of Consumer Innovation. "Humana is pleased to partner with Dancetown and help to promote good overall health."
Dancetown and Senior Health
Dancetown is not simply a game; it is a complete fitness system for enhancing older adults’ physical, mental and emotional health. Research is currently underway to measure Dancetown’s impact on seniors’ health. Potential benefits include reduced risk of falls, reduced risk of osteoporosis, improved cardiovascular health, and improved memory and attention.
“Systems like Dancetown have the potential to improve strength, coordination and fitness, help with weight loss and promote good visual spatial function, attention and mood,” said Dr. Stephanie Studenski, Professor, M.P.H., University of Pittsburgh, Division of Geriatric Medicine. “Dancetown provides all these physiological benefits within a highly motivating, fun game environment, while providing an enjoyable social experience.”
How It Works
The Dancetown Fitness System is specifically designed for older users and for use in retirement communities and other similar settings. Senior-friendly features include: bright, high contrast graphics; a wide range of difficulty levels to accommodate everyone from frail residents of assisted living to robust healthy adults; musical selections that are enjoyable for adults of all ages; multi-dancer mode for intergenerational play; and controls that can be managed by an administrator or dancing instructor.
The system includes a web-based component, called MyDancetown, which tracks users’ dancing performance and their medical assessments, analyzes and graphs progress over time, and provides easy access to an online community of Dancetown users.
Dancetown is now available for commercial use by senior living communities, senior centers, assisted living facilities, physical therapy and occupational therapy providers, healthcare organizations, hospitals, and physical fitness centers.
About Touchtown:
Touchtown has revolutionized communication for retirement communities, and is the senior living industry’s largest provider of technology to improve quality of life. Through a single point of data entry, Touchtown’s products keep communities in touch via an integrated set of delivery media: Touchtown TV+ in-house television, Touchtown Digital Signage, Web shows, Resident Web Portals and automatically generated Printed Calendars. Touchtown keeps residents in touch, improves operational efficiency and extends a community's marketing reach, uniting all the members of a retirement community.
Media Contact: Dawn Biery, VP Marketing
phone. 412.826.0460
email. dbiery@touchtown.us
Executive Contact: Jeff Pepper, President & CEO
phone. 412.826.0460
email. jeff@touchtown.us
