The Emertus Senior Living in Rockford Illinois, opened their Active Health Center. This was the seventh center unveiled in Illinois by In Home Personal Services. Within their Active Health Centers, IHPS offers the newest technological innovations for seniors living in assisted living centers. In keeping with this goal, the company selected BEAM’s technology for their thera-play systems.
In Home Personal Services is dedicated to the latest technology for rehabilitation and green building. They use low VOC paint, LED lights, and even recycled aluminum furniture. Along with the technology, each Active Health Center is staffed with physical therapists. Patricia Livesay-Smith founded the company. Her goal was to come up with a broader way to help her clients.
Active Health Center President Michael Collura stated, “Through our years of experience with in-home care and providing rehabilitation services in existing facilities, we knew that these spaces needed improved design, up-to-date technology and improved level of care based on new scientific research and our own observations.” To date, the IHPS approach has received “rave reviews.”
The thera-play system, powered with BEAM technology, is an innovative way for patients to play games that are based on physical therapy. Seniors enjoy their physical therapy sessions more when they are on this visually interactive floor. Also aromatherapy and chroma-therapy have been incorporated to improve the experience further. Among the engaging games offered to seniors include a game similar to “whack amole” where patients stomp on mice, encouraging them to move their bodies.
BEAM is primarily used as a virtual playground for children, where they can use their bodies to trigger motion activated games and sounds. The system results in positive benefits when it comes to all ages, as it encourages exercise and builds teamwork among users.
Collura adds “Research shows that engaging all the senses during physical therapy produces better outcomes by engaging more areas of the brain, specifically the limbic system of the brain that controls emotions and retrieves learned memories. By using chroma and aromatherapy, in conjunction with cutting edge physical therapy, we believe we can create a physical change in a patient’s mood for the positive, and there is no better therapy than just making our patients feel good.”
