Investigating the Efficacy of an Augmented Virtual Reality Driving Simulator (VRDS) on Institutionalized Dementia Patients

Status: Recruiting
Location: See location...
Intervention Type: Device
Study Type: Interventional
Study Phase: Not Applicable
SUMMARY

The improvement in health and welfare in modern society has led to an increase in life expectancy. Alternatively, the longer one lives, the more likely to experience deterioration in memory, cognitive ability, and executive function skills in our brains. While some cognitive impairments can be typical results of normal aging, a decline in spatial cognition can be a sign of dementia, especially Alzheimer's disease (AD). Based on the neuroplasticity of the brain even at old ages, there are some hopes to combat dementia by repeated use of cognitive exercises in the form of a serious game designed for older adults. A popular new technology to be used to design serious games is virtual reality (VR) designs. Aside from the gaming applications, the focus of VR experiments in medicine and neuroscience is to simulate a naturalistic environment to investigate brain function and/or use it for cognitive training. A virtual reality driving simulator (VRDS) has been developed by our team that is proposed to be installed in an existing car model at Riverview Health Center (RHC) dementia units. The VRDS has different levels of difficulty so that it can be utilized by people with different levels of cognitive impairments. However, in this study, the users will probably use only its level 1. The aim is to investigate the efficacy of the VRDS amongst institutionalized Alzheimer's/dementia patients, who are not capable of performing standard assessments. The goal is mainly to improve their mood and quality of life as many of these patients miss driving. Thus, their plausible mood change are assessed by asking the dementia unit nurses to share their observations of the patients in relation to VRDS usage; it will be a free-format anecdotal observation. In addition, while these patients are not expected to show any significant learning, playing this VRDS may improve patients' implicit memory; which can be observed by how well or poor they drive the simulated car; for example, how many times they crash to the curb or how many times they hit an animal, or how many times they ignore the red traffic light, etc.; these are reflected in the game's score. It is anticipated that this VRDS will have an overall positive effect on users' moods, and also it may result in an implicit memory improvement.

Eligibility
Participation Requirements
Sex: All
Minimum Age: 50
Healthy Volunteers: f
View:

• Living in a dementia care unit of Riverview Health Center

• Being mobile and able to see.

Locations
Other Locations
Canada
Riverview Health Center
RECRUITING
Winnipeg
Contact Information
Primary
Zahra Moussavi, Ph.D.
Zahra.Moussavi@umanitoba.ca
2044747023
Backup
Saber Mirmiran, M.Sc.
mirmiras@myumanitoba.ca
Time Frame
Start Date: 2024-01-02
Estimated Completion Date: 2026-06
Participants
Target number of participants: 20
Treatments
Experimental: VRDS users
Individuals who would use the VRDS
Related Therapeutic Areas
Sponsors
Leads: University of Manitoba

This content was sourced from clinicaltrials.gov