‘Today’s different’ ‘Magic table’ brings new life to Bethany’s memory care unit

Jim Erickson’s heart swelled multiple times its size as a resident at Bethany Meadows shared with him last week, “Today’s different.”

It was only two words. But those two words packed a powerful punch. For the first time in a very long time, the woman’s day truly was “different.”

In a good way.

The positive difference in her day came courtesy of the tenacious effort of Garden Home resident Jean Haug, Bethany Lutheran Foundation Director Jim Erickson and the Bethany Home Foundation Board of Directors.

The “difference” they collectively embraced was the purchase of a Tovertafel or “magic table.”

“When I first fired this thing up on Tuesday morning, Elaine showed up and she played it pretty much all day,” Erickson shared. “I came back in at 3:30 in the afternoon and we were sitting at this table and she said, ‘Today’s different.’”

Erickson asked her to expound.

The woman’s response warmed his heart.

“‘It wasn’t so boring,’” she told him.

“It just really touched my heart. There was activity,” he said, taking place in an unlikely unit at Bethany Meadows, the memory care unit. “When I first hooked this up, there were five women sitting at one of these tables not saying anything to each other, just kind of staring, and within 30 minutes, they were around the table, laughing and smiling and interacting more than they ever have. That was just a wonderful immediate reaction that we got from it.” 

So, just what is the Tovertafel?

It is a games console designed for use in healthcare settings that was launched in 2015 by the Dutch medical technologies company, Active Cues. The console contains a high-quality projector, infrared sensors, a loudspeaker and a processor that allows interactive games to be projected onto a table top or the floor. Coined the “magic table”, it promotes joyful social connections for seniors living with dementia through its wide range of interactive games. Developed with seniors and care professionals in mind, the games are designed to suit different stages of dementia and times of the day, such as family visits and sundowning.

The table features five levels of interactive, electronic games. This figure has to do with the level of anticipated cognitive activity. Level one games, for example, are intended for observation only. Level two games allow players to not only observe but also holds their attention.

For level three, these games work toward a particular goal and require players to memorize things. 

In level four, it’s possible to make ‘mistakes’ while playing these games. The aim is to make the players think and reason, as their choices impact if they reach their final goal.

And level five games focus on the part of the brain that controls executive functions, such as planning and decision-making. These games are noted to be too challenging for people in the middle and late stages of dementia.

The Tovertafel can be projected on tables or on the floor.

“You can do soccer and kick it or put it on the table. It projects it down and it’s infrared sensors allows your hand to activate it. You can play Whack a Mole, you can brush leaves, you can play music,” Haug explains. “It engages them and it gives you a window to them when there’s no other communication possible. It’s like a communication of joy. When you’ve got a group where you know they’re engaged and they’re sitting at a table, if there are those that need additional help, ones that you know aren’t in involved in it, it gives them an opportunity. “

For health reasons, Haug and her husband, Mike, relocated to a Garden Home on Bethany’s Brandon campus about a year and a half ago from their lake home at Lake Poinsett. She learned about the Tovertafel while reading the small-town newspaper from where they had previously resident. 

“There was an article in it where someone had donated one of these to Harmony Hill up in Watertown. The article talked about how it helped people who couldn’t communicate anymore, and how they could work in groups and it brought people out of their shell, and families could interact with it,” shares Jean, whose husband has dementia.

She next did her due diligence by researching the Tovertafel and then contacted the “magic table’s U.S. distributor to obtain a price quote.

“Then I started talking to these guys (Bethany administration) and said, ‘We’re going to do this,’ and they said, ‘Let’s do it.’ They were totally receptive,” she said.

But Haug took her involvement a step further. She began raising the needed funds for the $12,500 table, and she went back to the connections she made as a manager at Premier Bank Card’s Watertown location.

“I reached out to some connections that I had where, you know, corporations that had matching gifts and things like that, individual gifts, and so I raised a portion of it. Then the foundation said, ‘We’re going to do this,’” she said. “It’s not something that I haven’t done before.”

Before retiring, Haug served on the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Board, assisted with the Ronald McDonald House charity, and helped start the soda tab program in Watertown in the schools to benefit Camp Chance, which is a camp at Joy Ranch for underprivileged youth, and helped with Special Olympics swimming.

“Premier instills that in their employees,” she said. “You can retire from work, but you can never retire from caring.”

An easy sell to the Foundation

Erickson said after Haug presented the idea, the Bethany Lutheran Foundation Board of Directors were immediately sold on the benefits Tovertafel would bring to their residents.

“They’re all very proactive human beings that just want to see what good we can do for the residents today is their priority,” he said. “We can save money, we can invest money, but what can we do today to make the lives of the residents – the people who live here – better. When I started telling them about the Tovertafel and they saw videos, they said, ‘Let’s just get one.’ That’s been the complete attitude of our Foundation Board.”

Erickson said the plan is to bring more Tovertafel’s to Bethany Home in Brandon and Sioux Falls.

“We have another skilled nursing dementia unit on the Home side that we want to get one for, and I also want one for our common areas for our other residents that they can sit around instead of playing Bridge,” he said. “It’s just something that when families come and little kids come, they can play with their great-grandparents without sitting in a room with a TV on that’s blaring and no one’s talking. This is just an absolute blessing to us and a blessing to the residents.”

Haug witnessed how the Tovertafel did just that.

“Yesterday, we were here, and two little girls were trick-or-treating, and they came in with their little princess outfits on, and they put on this game called Smash the Bug. These little girls were beating those bugs and the ladies sitting at the table, you could just see they were excited and there was a connection. Instead of a little kid standing there looking at them, they were building a relationship,” she said.

To Erickson’s knowledge, the Tovertafel in the memory care unit at Bethany Meadows is only the third of its kind in South Dakota. Watertown and a Good Samaritan Society location in Sioux Falls also have one.

“Nationwide, this has just taken off,” he said. “It’s just very simple things that can be done, but you don’t have to overthink it, and there’s physical action, there’s mental action, and you saw the smiles today.”

She’s not done yet

Haug is elated to now call her Garden Home in Brandon “home.”

“I think Bethany is one of Brandon’s best blessings,” she said. “I remember when my dad was in the home, and we’d bring the grandkids, and they would just sit there. There was no interaction, no nothing that they could do to communicate in a non-verbal way. I think this will just be such a blessing to be able to connect that way. Because when you lose the ability to communicate, even if it’s in a game, you feel connected when you’re doing the same thing.”

Haug said she’s not done yet seeking out new opportunities for all who reside on the Bethany campus.

“There’s a couple other things I’m looking at, too. I’m not done. They’re so open and receptive to it. They’re just such a blessing,” she said. “God bless Bethany for taking the step to do this because, they’re such good people to take care of.”

It takes a village

Erickson said the idea of bringing Tovertafel to Bethany’s Brandon campus was made possible “because of the community of Bethany.”

“We had a garden home resident who instigated all of this, which probably isn’t the right word, but she did. Those kinds of ideas, having an engaged community here at Bethany, and within Brandon and Sioux Falls, are the kind of ideas that we want. We want to understand that there are better ways to improve the lives of these folks,” Erickson said.

Adds Haug, “Bethany is so receptive to any type of innovative, state-of-the-art technology. They take such good care of the people here physically. They’re so committed to them, to helping them emotionally and mentally and spiritually.”