It’s like a Fitbit on steroids.

Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have developed a multi-modal sensing device that can track the fine-grained activities and behavior of people with dementia — and it could help in Army combat training, too.

The utilitarian chair. Its simple structure and function haven’t changed in millennia. But researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have made the humble chair a portal into not only a person’s movements, but also their mental state.

Dr. Debraj De, a postdoctoral fellow at Missouri S&T, and Dr. Sajal K. Das, the Daniel St. Clair Endowed Chair and department chair of computer science at Missouri S&T, have developed a chair that could help detect the daily behavior and mental health of elderly people at home or in assisted-living facilities — specifically rehabilitation patients and elderly people susceptible to levels of dementia. The “Care Chair” employs sensors to detect a user’s functional and emotion-based activities throughout a normal day. The device, which uses four sensors, slips over a chair’s backrest and back so that it’s unobtrusive.