Introducing Virtual Reality to Home-Based Primary Care Veterans With Dementia

Persons with dementia (PwD) can experience behavioral and psychiatric symptoms (BPS), impacting their quality of life and sense of well-being. Symptoms can occur due to environmental changes, frustration with being asked to do things they can no longer do, underlying medical conditions, and medication interactions. Fatigue, fear, and misperceptions can lead to BPS, such as apathy, depression, irritability, agitation, and repetitive questions. Medication as treatment of BPS for PwD can lead to side effects and the potential for worsening the symptoms for older adults. Medication should only be considered when non-drug approaches fail.

This project aimed to introduce virtual reality (VR) to home-based primary care veterans with dementia to determine the effect of VR on psychological well-being in PwD.

Three consecutive days of VR sessions were completed to evaluate psychological well-being before and after VR intervention.

VR was associated with a significant reduction in frustration or agitation when asked to finish a task. After the intervention, veterans had fewer disapproving or angry verbalizations during contact with others and completed more than 5 min of a single activity. They showed fewer facial expressions of fright and demonstrated less frowning or crying. Compared to pre-intervention, veterans demonstrated less pulling away from others, less listlessness, less resistance to being involved in an activity, and asked repeated questions less frequently after the VR intervention.

VR can be a non-pharmacological management technique for decreasing BPS in PwD to increase their psychological well-being.