“Come on, zebra, come on,” she said, beginning to stroke the air above her knees.
“What else do you see, Ingrid?” asks Dorothy Laugo, a recreation assistant who leads the virtual reality (VR) session on a tablet while the pair sit side by side in a long-term care home. duration of Toronto.
Ms. Menezes, 71, looks up, down and around, then points to the floor to the left of her wheelchair.
“Is that a rhino?” she asks.
“Yes,” replies Ms. Laugo, smiling. But she knows what Ms. Menezes is most looking forward to.
“I think it’s your favorite, what do you see?”, she asks.
“The giraffe,” said Ingrid Menezes, looking up. “She’s beautiful.”
After Ms. Laugo gently lifted the virtual reality glasses from her head, Menezes said “Oh!” as her African safari disappears and she sees the other people in the common room.
“Welcome to the real world,” says Laugo.
Ms. Menezes moved to Kennedy Lodge in Toronto’s east end after brain surgery about five years ago. She is one of a growing number of long-term care residents in Canada who are benefiting from virtual reality as part of their recreational programs.
Supporters say the technology not only provides entertainment, but can also help reduce isolation by encouraging residents to share their virtual experiences with recreation staff, other residents and family members.
The 15- to 20-minute sessions can also reach and comfort many long-term care residents with dementia, they say.
In an emailed statement, the Canadian Long-Term Care Association (CLAC) said it “supports technology, such as VR, as an additional tool that staff can use to improve quality of life and care of residents who live in residential and long-term care centers (CHSLD)”.
“Looking toward 2025, ACSLD prioritizes the rapid development of technology and its effective integration into CHSLDs,” said Jodi Hall, the association’s CEO.
Kennedy Lodge program manager Sandra Morgan said virtual reality experiences need to be tailored to the tastes and needs of each resident, especially for people with dementia.
“You have to know your resident. You can’t just put a (virtual reality) headset on him and choose (what he will experience),” she stressed.
Connect with loved ones
Ms. Morgan and her recreation team keep lists with each resident’s interests, as well as their likes and dislikes, to determine the best virtual reality programs for each person. If someone doesn’t respond well to animals, Ms. Morgan said, they wouldn’t use the African experience that Ms. Menezes loves so much.
The program manager also encourages visiting family members, especially grandchildren, to join residents in virtual reality experiences as a way to connect.
“I always say, ‘OK, you can use virtual reality. We won’t be on our phone,'” she said. “We will interact with Grandma during this visit.” And they are delighted because virtual reality is their thing.”
According to Ms. Laugo, higher-functioning residents benefit from using VR in groups, “because it allows them to share experiences and interact in a more social environment.”
But for residents with dementia who aren’t able to interact in the same way, she holds one-on-one sessions. If residents are agitated, she chooses VR videos that offer “calm, serene environments that help reduce anxiety and also provide sensory stimulation.”
Babies, nature and beaches are popular VR experiences that can have a calming effect, according to Laugo.
The Baycrest Centre, a teaching and research hospital and long-term care provider in Toronto, often uses VR to help older adults remember what they did when they were younger.
“We have a resident who was a former scuba diver and so the program was taking him under the sea,” said Cyrelle Muskat, Baycrest’s director of quality systems, wellness and culture.
“His expression was full of joy. He was talking about the incredible experience he had, telling his family about it,” she said.
Many seniors also enjoy virtual reality city tours, Muskat said.
“It takes them places they wouldn’t otherwise be able to go or experiences they wouldn’t be able to have at this point in their life,” she said.
Help in illness
Baycrest is actively studying whether or not virtual reality can help reduce dementia-related “reactive behaviors,” like kicking, hitting, punching, and spitting.
The study’s lead researcher, Mara Swartz, said they held one-on-one virtual reality sessions with 10 residents with dementia, as well as two others in the pre-pilot research phase.
The results were “positive,” she reported, adding that she cannot give more details before the study is submitted to a journal for publication next year.
But the key, she said, was matching the virtual reality experience to the person.
“I always returned, as much as possible, to who they were, to what they loved and did before the illness took over.”
A resident with dementia was a pilot. When he was placed in the virtual cockpit of a Cessna plane, he grabbed the controls.
“He was preparing the plane to fly,” Ms. Swartz recalls.
When his virtual reality headset was removed, he was smiling and remained seated and engaged afterward.
The Canadian Press’s medical coverage is supported by a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. The PC is solely responsible for this content.
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