Using Virtual Reality for Cognitive Training of the Elderly

Abstract

There is a pressing demand for improving the quality and efficacy of health care and social support services needed by the world's growing elderly population, especially by those affected by mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD)-type early-stage dementia. Meeting that demand can significantly benefit from the deployment of innovative, computer-based applications capable of addressing specific needs, particularly in the area of cognitive impairment mitigation and rehabilitation. In that context, we present here our perspective viewpoint on the use of virtual reality (VR) tools for cognitive rehabilitation training, intended to assist medical personnel, health care workers, and other caregivers in improving the quality of daily life activities of people with MCI and AD. We discuss some effective design criteria and developmental strategies and suggest some possibly useful protocols and procedures. The particular innovative supportive advantages offered by the immersive interactive characteristics inherent to VR technology are discussed.

Technology and Dementia: The Future is Now

“…VR for dementia has also attracted recent attention [67], not just as a leisure activity, but also an assessment tool [68] and for delivering cognitive training [69]. The potential of VR and augmented reality, so-called mixed reality technologies, to support people with dementia in everyday activities, is currently being explored [70].…”

Virtual reality-based cognitive healthcare interventions: User-centered design considerations, guidelines and framework

“…There exists an ample corpus of reported work done specifically on VR-based interventions intended to provide cognitive care to people with ADRD derived impairments (García-Betances et al, 2015a;2015b;. Based on that accumulated experience we propose the adoption of a user-centered designed-for-the-goal customizable design type of approach for the design of these interventions (García-Betances, 2017).…”

“…Nonpharmacological therapies being developed are mostly intended, not as alternatives, but as convenient ways to indirectly mitigate the burdens of the patients and of the other stakeholders. Cognitive care interventions based on human-computer interaction are among the most promising non-pharmacological therapeutic approaches being researched to deal with the consequences of ADRD (García-Betances et al, 2015a).…”

“…Clearly defining the cognitive intervention and clearly determining how to measure its efficacy will be decisive for ascertaining the effectiveness of these non-pharmacological computer-based cognitive healthcare therapies (Harvey et al, 2018). Given the positive evidence accumulated so far, we are confident that the key to develop more effective interventions rests upon the utilization of more advanced human-computer interaction (HCI), especially through the use of virtual environments (VE) that exploit the resources offered by emergent virtual reality (VR) platforms (García-Betances et al, 2015a, 2015bRaggi et al, 2017), as well as by other related evolving technologies, such as augmented (Chang et al, 2016;Hayhurst, 2018) and mixed virtual reality environments (Lokka et al, 2018).…”

The Study of Action Observation Therapy in Neurological Diseases: A Few Technical Considerations

“…The application of virtual reality (VR) approaches in the ield of rehabilitation is extensively reported, and it has been shown to have certain beneits, not only in the recovery of motor dysfunctions [43], but also in improving cognitive impairment [44,45]. VR therapies are based on the generation of a real-time threedimensional environment that makes the patients feels as if they are in a real situation [46].…”