Background Serious games (SGs) are used as complementary approaches to stimulate patients with dementia. However, many of the SGs use out-of-the-shelf technologies that may not always be suitable for such populations, as they can lead to negative behaviors, such as anxiety, fatigue, and even cybersickness. Objective This study aims to evaluate how patients with dementia interact and accept 5 out-of-the-shelf technologies while completing 10 virtual reality tasks. Methods A total of 12 participants diagnosed with dementia (mean age 75.08 [SD 8.07] years, mean Mini-Mental State Examination score 17.33 [SD 5.79], and mean schooling 5.55 [SD 3.30]) at a health care center in Portugal were invited to participate in this study. A within-subject experimental design was used to allow all participants to interact with all technologies, such as HTC VIVE, head-mounted display (HMD), tablet, mouse, augmented reality (AR), leap motion (LM), and a combination of HMD with LM. Participants’ performance was quantified through behavioral and verbal responses, which were captured through video recordings and written notes. Results The findings of this study revealed that the user experience using technology was dependent on the patient profile; the patients had a better user experience when they use technologies with direct interaction configuration as opposed to indirect interaction configuration in terms of assistance required (P=.01) and comprehension (P=.01); the participants did not trigger any emotional responses when using any of the technologies; the participants’ performance was task-dependent; the most cost-effective technology was the mouse, whereas the least cost-effective was AR; and all the technologies, except for one (HMD with LM), were not exposed to external hazards. Conclusions Most participants were able to perform tasks using out-of-the-shelf technologies. However, there is no perfect technology, as they are not explicitly designed to address the needs and skills of people with dementia. Here, we propose a set of guidelines that aim to help health professionals and engineers maximize user experience when using such technologies for the population with dementia.

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BACKGROUND Serious games are used as complementary approaches to stimulate dementia patients. However, many of the serious games use “out-of-the-shelf” technology that may not always be suitable for such population as they can lead to negative behaviors such as anxiety, fatigue and even cybersickness. OBJECTIVE We performed a study with dementia patients to evaluate how they interact and accept five “out-of-the-shelf” technologies while completing ten virtual reality tasks. METHODS We invited twelve participants with dementia at a health care center in Portugal. A within-subject experimental design was used so that all participants could interact with all technologies such as HTC-VIVE, Head Mounted Display, Tablet, Mouse, Augmented Reality, Leap Motion and a combination of Head Mounted Display with Leap Motion. We quantified participants' performance through behavioral and verbal responses, which were captured through video recordings and written notes. RESULTS Findings revealed that (1) task performance using technology is dependent of patient profile, (2) patients had better task performance when using technologies with direct interaction configuration as oppose to indirect interaction configuration, (3) participants did not trigger any emotional responses when using any of the technologies, (4) participants performance is task-dependent, (5) the technology that is most cost-effective is the Head Mounted Display, while the least cost-effective is Augmented Reality and (6) all technologies, except for one (Head Mounted Display with Leap Motion), were not exposed to external hazards. CONCLUSIONS Most participants were able to perform tasks using “out-of-the-shelf” technologies. However, there is no perfect technology as they are not specifically designed to address the needs and skills of people with dementia. To enhance the user experience, we propose a set of guidelines that aim to help health professionals and engineers maximize task performance when using such technologies for the dementia population.