Tovertafel Game Consoles Aim to Address Cognitive Challenges, Improve Quality of Life at LISVH

Since 1991, the mission of the Long Island State Veterans Home at Stony Brook University (LISVH) has been to provide high-quality and compassionate health care services for veterans and their families. Those services apply not only to the quality of care, but also extend to quality of life.

As part of the efforts to honor that commitment, LISVH received $30,000 in funding from local Lions Clubs to purchase two Tovertafel game consoles, celebrated at a ceremony on August 11.

Tovertafel - a Dutch term for "Magic Table" - is a games console designed for use in healthcare settings. It features a high-quality projector, infrared sensors, a loudspeaker and a processor with which interactive games are projected onto a table. The console was developed for people with cognitive challenges in care institutions, daycare, public libraries and schools.

"Last year I presented the idea that we needed some special equipment for our veterans, and it was very well received," said Jaime McGrade, assistant director of development, medicine advancement, at the Long Island State Veterans Home. "Many Lions Clubs and friends made this possible, and we are celebrating today because of all of you who helped give us such a wonderful donation."

"We were approached about helping to purchase two Tovertafels for the Long Island State Veterans Home, and we thought it would be a great Suffolk County project," said Fran Beringer, district governor of Suffolk County Lions Clubs. He added the funds were raised from seven individual Lions Clubs throughout Suffolk and a matching grant from the Lions Club International Foundation, the New York State and Bermuda Lions Foundation, and local Lions Clubs in the surrounding area.

The local Lions Clubs that helped with this effort include the Mattituck Lions Club, Bay Shore Lions Club, North Babylon Lions Club, PDG's Lorri & Fred Rieger, Patchogue Lioness Lions Club, Melville Lions Club, Lake Grove Lions Club and Brookhaven Great South Bay Lions Club. Each Tovertafel unit costs about $15,000.

"At the end of the day, we have a strong commitment to not only provide a good quality of care for residents who live here, but a good quality of life regardless of their cognitive state," said Fred Sganga, LISVH executive director. "These multi-sensory Tovertafels gives us another way to provide the quality of care and quality of life that our residents deserve."

The Long Island State Veterans Home is one of Long Island's premiere providers of long-term skilled nursing services and adult day health care and has cared for more than 15,000 United States veterans. Itis a major teaching affiliate of Stony Brook Medicine, and continues to be one of the only nursing homes in the country that is fully integrated into the health and educational mission of a major teaching and research university. This affiliation enables the LISVH to offer Long Island's veterans access to the New York metropolitan region's best health care professionals and most advanced medical technology.

"Our veterans deserve nothing less than state of the art, and that's what we want to provide for them," said Sganga. "Forty percent of us will wind up in a skilled nursing facility, even if it's for a short period of time. While we all want to be home, we want to make LISVH an easy decision to be the second choice should a veteran need any kind of skilled nursing care. That's our mission, and it's groups like the Lions Clubs that help us achieve that mission. From the bottom of my heart, I'm grateful to each and every one of you for making this happen."

- Robert Emproto