Virtual reality training system for patients with dementia

Alzheimer patients suffer from cognitive deficits even after successful pharmacological removal of the amyloid plaques. To help these patients regain their lost functions, we developed a Virtual Reality (VR) system they can use both in the clinic and at home. The VR environment consists in a 3D maze containing departments of a virtual supermarket: the SuperMazeMarket (SMM). Patients can move within the SMM and grab items on the SMM shelves using conventional input devices such as a game pad and a dance pad. The patients are instructed to perform several tasks, specifically designed to train spatial orientation and working memory. The system and tasks are designed to be low cost, entertaining, motivating and easy to use. The SMM can be created anew for each session or patient and task nature and difficulty can be individualized using the MissionEditor. Navigation within the SMM trains spatial orientation, while the tasks’ nature and demands train working memory. For example, one of the implemented tasks gives a patient a list of items to remember (working memory) and to find and purchase in the SMM (spatial orientation). The target audience are patients that have been diagnosed with the Alzheimer’s disease in an early stage. However, the therapy program can also be used by other dementia patients and patients with cognitive impairment or by healthy subjects for prevention of cognitive degradation. First tests with young healthy subjects were conducted, who reported the system to be easy to use, while still providing challenging tasks. A second pilot test was then conducted with older dementia patients, who had problems controlling the input devices but still managed to solve the tasks on an easy difficulty setting. Conclusively, the system proved to have challenging tasks for dementia patients, but would benefit from additional research in human machine interaction for elderly people, as well as in determining the fun factors for an audience that normally does not play computer games. The work of this project showed to be a valuable first step in creating a therapy program for