Fastpong Cognitive Motor Training Pilot Begins in Canada

Vitality Pong Neuro Active Clinic in North Vancouver, Canada, is beginning a four-week pilot using Fastpong to explore measurable reaction, attention, coordination and cognitive-motor training.

The programme will apply Fastpong technology across several different participant profiles, including people living with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, a young participant with ADHD and a high-performance athlete.

Vitality Pong will design and supervise the exercises, adapting their cognitive and physical demands to each participant. Fastpong will automatically record performance data, while the clinic will conduct the programme’s broader cognitive-motor assessments.

Combining movement with visual decision-making

Fastpong was originally developed around a simple question: what happens when visual decision-making becomes part of table tennis training?

A conventional table tennis robot repeatedly delivers balls to the player. The complete Fastpong system adds another layer by combining automated ball delivery with illuminated targets, return-ball detection and measurable performance data.

During an exercise, the participant must track the incoming ball, identify the illuminated target, decide how to respond, move into position and direct the return towards the correct area. The process then begins again with the next ball.

This creates a repeated cognitive-motor sequence:

Ball delivery → visual stimulus → decision → movement → return → detection → feedback

For table tennis players, this can be used to develop placement, reaction and match-relevant decision-making. In a cognitive-motor programme, the same framework can be adapted to challenge attention, sequencing, coordination and the ability to perform physical and cognitive tasks simultaneously.

A four-week pilot in North Vancouver

A participant living with Parkinson’s disease might work on controlled and repeatable visual-motor responses. Someone with Alzheimer’s disease may be given exercises focusing on recognition, sequencing and coordinated movement. A young participant with ADHD could work with changing targets and tasks requiring sustained attention, while a high-performance athlete can be challenged with faster ball frequencies, more complex sequences and decisions under time pressure.

The underlying system remains the same, but the speed, difficulty, target patterns and cognitive demands can all be adjusted.

What will the pilot measure?

The FP02 interactive training tiles detect where returned balls land. During each exercise, Fastpong can automatically record:

• target accuracy;
• return-ball speed;
• exercise results;
• performance over repeated sessions; and
• heatmap data showing where returns landed.

Vitality Pong will separately assess broader cognitive-motor indicators, including attention, coordination, response consistency, sequencing, dual-task performance, fatigue and recovery.

Some exercises may combine table tennis with an additional cognitive task, such as remembering a sequence, counting or responding to changing information while continuing the physical exercise. This is known as dual-task training: performing a movement task while managing another cognitive demand at the same time.

By repeating exercises under controlled conditions, the programme can explore questions such as:

• Does target accuracy change over the four weeks?
• Do responses become more consistent?
• Can performance be maintained when a second cognitive task is introduced?
• How does performance change as an exercise becomes more complex?
• Does performance decline later in a session, and how quickly does it recover?

More information about the system’s statistics and exercise functions can be found in the Fastpong feature tutorial.

Exploring different cognitive-motor applications

Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease can affect movement initiation, coordination and motor control. Fastpong does not diagnose or treat Parkinson’s disease, and this small pilot is not intended to establish clinical efficacy.

It does, however, provide a structured environment in which visual information and physical responses can be combined, repeated and measured.

Previous research has found that table tennis training is feasible for people with Parkinson’s disease and may have potential benefits for balance, movement and wellbeing. However, researchers have also emphasised the need for larger controlled studies. A published pilot study of table tennis training in Parkinson’s disease provides further background on this developing field.

Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive ageing

For participants living with Alzheimer’s disease, exercises can be adapted to combine visual recognition, movement, sequencing and immediate feedback without requiring advanced table tennis experience.

The broader relationship between cognitively demanding physical activity and brain health is attracting increasing interest. Table tennis is particularly relevant because visual processing, prediction, reaction, coordination and movement occur together during play.

Fastpong has examined this wider subject in Table Tennis as Brain Training: The Benefits for Older Adults.

The current programme remains exploratory. Larger participant groups and appropriate clinical research designs would be required to determine whether particular training protocols produce meaningful outcomes for people with Alzheimer’s disease or other neurological conditions.

ADHD and attention

The application is different for a participant with ADHD. An interactive exercise can require sustained attention while presenting a continuing series of changing visual and physical demands.

Instead of repeating the same movement, the participant must continually process a new stimulus and produce an appropriate response. Target patterns, ball placement, exercise sequences and scoring can all be adjusted to vary the level of difficulty.

The pilot will explore how these tasks can be structured and measured. It is not intended to present Fastpong as a treatment for ADHD.

High-performance training

For a high-performance athlete, the system can increase ball frequency, vary ball placement, reduce target size and introduce more demanding visual sequences.

This allows technical performance and decision-making to be challenged together. The player must not only reach and return the incoming ball but also recognise where the return should be directed—all under increasing time pressure.

From sports performance to measurable brain-body training

Fastpong’s development has long been connected to visual-stimulus training.

Research conducted by Fastpong founder Amir Kamandi at Seoul National University examined the effects of visual-stimulus training on table tennis players, including choice reaction time and performance accuracy. That work helped shape a system in which the player responds to visual information while receiving and returning the ball.

Fastpong has since developed this approach into an integrated platform combining programmable ball delivery, interactive visual targets, sensor-based detection, structured exercises and performance analysis.

The North Vancouver pilot represents a new application of that technology. It brings together interactive sport, visual stimulus, movement, cognitive demand and measurable feedback in a real-world neuro-active training environment.

At the end of the four-week programme, baseline and post-training results will be compared across the different participants. The results will help Fastpong and Vitality Pong better understand how interactive table tennis exercises may be adapted for different cognitive-motor objectives and guide the design of future programmes.

For Fastpong, the project broadens the question beyond how technology can improve table tennis practice. It begins to explore how an interactive table tennis platform can connect perception, decision-making, movement and measurable human performance.