From one headset to whole systems of care

DancingMind was founded in 2018 by Jennifer Zhang, an Oxford-trained mathematician and computer scientist, after her grandmother’s dementia showed her how hard it is to make the therapy that works actually get done. Therapists are scarce, sessions are expensive, and care too often stops at the clinic door.

So we rebuilt the delivery model. DancingMind runs clinician-designed therapy as gamified programmes on standalone VR headsets and tablets: more than 50 applications across four domains: cognitive, physical, activities of daily living and mood. Difficulty is graded like progressive overload in strength training: as a patient improves, the programme adds just enough challenge to keep them growing.

What began with a single headset in a Singapore care setting now runs across hospitals, active-ageing centres and senior day-care in Singapore and the United Kingdom, and, because the platform travels, therapy no longer stops at discharge. Group sessions run in the community, and programmes continue at home, monitored remotely by the care team.

Every session captures granular performance data clinicians can act on. The platform is CE-marked (self-certified) and registered as a medical device with Singapore’s HSA.