IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i10p5290-d555638.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Virtual Reality-Based Cognitive Stimulation on People with Mild to Moderate Dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Author

Listed:
  • Jorge Oliveira

    (Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab–HEI-Lab, Lusófona University, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Pedro Gamito

    (Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab–HEI-Lab, Lusófona University, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Teresa Souto

    (Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab–HEI-Lab, Lusófona University, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Rita Conde

    (Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab–HEI-Lab, Lusófona University, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Maria Ferreira

    (Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab–HEI-Lab, Lusófona University, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Tatiana Corotnean

    (Department of Psychology, Lusófona University, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Adriano Fernandes

    (Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora–SCMA, 2610-143 Amadora, Portugal)

  • Henrique Silva

    (Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora–SCMA, 2610-143 Amadora, Portugal)

  • Teresa Neto

    (Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora–SCMA, 2610-143 Amadora, Portugal)

Abstract

The use of ecologically oriented approaches with virtual reality (VR) depicting instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) is a promising approach for interventions on acquired brain injuries. However, the results of such an approach on dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are still lacking. This research reports on a pilot randomized controlled trial that aimed to explore the effect of a cognitive stimulation reproducing several IADL in VR on people with mild-to-moderate dementia caused by AD. Patients were recruited from residential care homes of Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora (SCMA), which is a relevant nonprofit social and healthcare provider in Portugal. This intervention lasted two months, with a total of 10 sessions (two sessions/week). A neuropsychological assessment was carried out at the baseline and follow-up using established neuropsychological instruments for assessing memory, attention, and executive functions. The sample consisted of 17 patients of both genders randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The preliminary results suggested an improvement in overall cognitive function in the experimental group, with an effect size corresponding to a large effect in global cognition, which suggests that this approach is effective for neurocognitive stimulation in older adults with dementia, contributing to maintaining cognitive function in AD.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge Oliveira & Pedro Gamito & Teresa Souto & Rita Conde & Maria Ferreira & Tatiana Corotnean & Adriano Fernandes & Henrique Silva & Teresa Neto, 2021. "Virtual Reality-Based Cognitive Stimulation on People with Mild to Moderate Dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-13, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5290-:d:555638
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5290/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5290/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aisling Flynn & Marguerite Barry & Wei Qi Koh & Gearóid Reilly & Attracta Brennan & Sam Redfern & Dympna Casey, 2022. "Introducing and Familiarising Older Adults Living with Dementia and Their Caregivers to Virtual Reality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-22, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5290-:d:555638. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.