Introducing and Familiarising Older Adults Living with Dementia and Their Caregivers to Virtual Reality

Aisling Flynn (), Marguerite Barry, Wei Qi Koh, Gearóid Reilly, Attracta Brennan, Sam Redfern and Dympna Casey
Additional contact information
Aisling Flynn: School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
Marguerite Barry: Information and Communication Studies, ADAPT Centre, University College Dublin, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland
Wei Qi Koh: School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
Gearóid Reilly: School of Computer Science, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
Attracta Brennan: School of Computer Science, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
Sam Redfern: School of Computer Science, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland
Dympna Casey: School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, Ireland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 23, 1-22

Abstract: Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly being applied in dementia care across a range of applications and domains including health and wellbeing. Despite the commercial availability of VR, informants of design are not always aware of its functionality and capabilities, to meaningfully contribute to VR design. In designing VR applications for people living with dementia, it is recommended that older adults living with dementia and their support persons be involved in the design process using participatory approaches, thereby giving them a voice on the design of technology from the outset. A VR technology probe is a useful means of familiarising older adults living with dementia and their informal caregivers with the knowledge and understanding of interactive VR to employ technology that supports them to maintain their social health. This paper charts the implementation and evaluation of a VR technology probe, VR FOUNDations. To explore their experiences, nine older adults living with dementia and their nine informal caregivers trialled VR FOUNDations and completed semi-structured interviews after its use. Overall, older adults living with dementia and their informal caregivers perceived VR FOUNDations to achieve its aim of increasing understanding and inspiring future design decisions. The findings also identified promising positive experiences using a VR technology probe which may be indicative of its applicability to social health and wellbeing domains. This paper advocates for the structured design and implementation of VR technology probes as a pre-requisite to the participatory design of VR applications for the health and wellbeing of people living with dementia. The use of such technology probes may afford older adults living with dementia and their informal caregivers the best opportunity to contribute to design decisions and participate in technology design to support their health and wellbeing.

Keywords: dementia; older adult; virtual reality; VR; technology probe; participatory methods; human–computer interaction; gerontechnology; AgeTech; digital technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/16343/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/16343/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:16343-:d:994979

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().