A breakthrough in cognitive care

Deva World is a tool for the times, amplifying human energy – not replacing it – to uplift the spirit of both members of the care partnership in an efficient, affordable and joyful way.

Upcoming:

Dr Mandy will be speaking at the Connected Health Conference, Boston October 17th

Deva World is full of fun, self-affirming activities of daily living

Playing together builds stress-free communication bridges

Improving quality of life for people with cognitive disabilities and their supporters

Scientifically developed and validated

Care Staff:
– 84% improved skillset
– 78% strengthened communication
– 50% increase in client cooperation

Players:
– 76% nominate the ‘happy’ emoji after a Deva World Session
– “Enjoy” is the most common descriptor used after a Deva World Session

Read more about the science

"It reminded me of someone who was blind, and suddenly could see"

Margaret Szabo, RN BSc MBA, Director Business Development, Northwood, Canada

"Norma loved it! Deva made her forget her distress over missing crackers and her daughter-in-law found the experience fascinating"

Shelley Katz, Activity Director
Bello Gardens, CA

"I shared Deva World with hundreds throughout my community. People were blown away and excited about Deva world"

Kathy Helgerson,
Founder, SimpleSteps
First Deva-in-the-Field
La Crosse, Wisconsin

"It would be great to be able to give this to somebody in the earlier stages to set it all up with everything they like and have the care partners involved"

Phyllis Fehr
International speaker and advocate. Living well with dementia.
Ontario, CA

"Deva World is important to support our new brand message: elevating the human spirit"

Saudia Gajadhar, US Director of Marketing, Comfort Keepers

"Normally she repeats the same 4 or 5 questions. This time, we had 30 mins of conversation laughing and happier and very peaceful when we left. Often she's a bit agitated when we leave but not on this Sunday"

Evy Cugelman, RN and Validation Therapist

"I wanted to tell you that Eli was absolutely inspired by yesterday’s session. She couldn’t stop talking about the amazing results for all the participants"

Pamela Bruder, Life Style and Enrichment Program Coordinator,
Emmy Monash Aged Care, Melbourne, Australia

"I used Deva for the first time today with a client. She is middle Alzheimer's. She enjoyed it and said it brought back memories. It did, and we talked about several things in her past. I loooovedd that I could personalize it with some of her wedding and other photos! So cool!"

Allison Scharr, RMA, CLL, CDS at Active Minds, Happy Hearts

"What a great morning! Muriel keeps saying “That was incredible!” She is still raving about the experience and wants to market your product"

Shelley Katz, Activity Director
Bello Gardens, CA

"A resident, who often wanders away from group activities, was able to stay focused for 20 minutes with facial expressions of joy."

Odile Lavault,
Recreation therapist CTRS,
Certified Validation teacher,
San Francisco

"Deva, given its foundational principles in evidence-supported concepts of self, presence, person-hood and efficacy, holds significant promise as an innovative technology with high value impact on quality of life and caregiver burden for people with dementia and their families"

Margaret Szabo, RN BSc MBA, Director Business Development, Northwood, Canada

"Deva has real opportunity as a portal for many engaging activities from music to drama, adventure to art."

John Zeisel, PhD,
President
I'm Still Here Foundation
& Hearthstone Alzheimer Care,
Boston

“This is a breath of fresh air and is exactly the way we need to be thinking given the dementia cohort of the future... meaningful virtual worlds for tablet devices open up realms of possibility in both research and consumer domains.”

Professor June Andrews,
Dementia Services Development Centre,
Stirling University, UK

"I’m used to playing games a lot faster, but for my grandmother this is exactly the speed that I want."

Sergio,
part time student RN caring for his grandmother full-time
Cambridge MA.

Here’s what happens in a Deva World session

Here’s a great example of ‘self engagement’. The player has discovered the transistor radio on the garden bench. He activates it and sings along to one of the tracks. While singing, he also feeds Dixie, the cat. In effect, he is multitasking, and is in the zone optimal engagement.

Norma is anxious. Someone took her biscuits. We start playing Deva World together. She enjoys the music and begins dancing in her chair. I ask her about her love of dancing and memories of meeting her husband at a dance comes to the fore. She opens up and talks about this. Norma forgets who took her biscuits.

Two players and a care partner in an evaluation study of Deva World. Both players reside at a memory care community. When Agnes sees her photo, she exclaims “Am I??” Even when people have difficulty finding words, we often notice the use of I’s and ’we’s, which are key expressions of the sense of self.

Deva World supports cultural and linguistic diversity

Connecting to spiritual life through Deva World: Here we see Poppy, who has never used a computer before, interacts with a book of religious icons. Poppy, who normally doesn’t usually speak, names the Saints while turning the pages.

When Maria is playing Deva World, her tremor abates. We can also see the gentle encouragement delivered by Eketerina, her supporter.

People can often feel isolated even though they are in a community. In this session, conducted in Greek, Michael is working with one resident. She finds the Greek records. Her singing is infectious. Soon, a group gathers and gets involved.

Customize Deva World for deeper engagement

For care organizations

Tool up your care teams to deliver person-centered cognitive care at the point of care.

Build deeper connections and understandings through a scientifically devised and validated system.

Run Deva sessions one-on-one or in small groups.

A robust administration dashboard provides real-time indicators of wellbeing and actionable insights.

Contact us to learn how Deva makes a world of difference to care teams and clients alike. Packages include training, on-boarding and tiered pricing.

For families

Deva World could be the shift that you are looking for to improve communication between you and your loved one.

Talk to your care organisation – they can share Deva World with you via Deva’s care circle option.

Alternatively, if you are looking for an innovative cognitive care tool, you can directly download and subscribe to Deva World.

Then, go to your personal dashboard where you will find videos that help you to get the most out of Deva World

Our community

Case Study

“Supporting well-being through virtual world play”
Learn how a caregiver can build a bridge to engagement and communication for a senior with dementia.

Read Case Study

Grounded in science

Deva World was built from the ground up with a residential community receiving full-time memory care, informed by dementia therapy best practices.

The caregiver/player relationship is integrated at the design level. This joint experience is key to players’ improved mood and sense of wellbeing.

The project was developed by Australian creative media-maker and social-scientist, Mandy Salomon PhD, who, while researching online virtual communities at Melbourne’s Swinburne University, observed that people can be more themselves in a virtual world than they can in the actual world.

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