Improving Alzheimer’s Caregiver Preparedness Using Virtual Reality

Clemson, SC

Building empathy among Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) caregivers will help them provide better care for patients. Virtual Dementia Tour (VDT) is a common method used to build empathy by simulating symptoms of AD. In this tour, the caregivers are asked to complete tasks in the simulated setting so that they get a feeling of what the patients are going through and thus better prepare them to care for the patients. We developed VDT in Virtual Reality (VR) format (VR-VDT) to determine if this is as effective as the other modalities used currently to increase empathy. In VR-VDT, participants experienced the general symptoms of AD in an immersive manner using VR. The participants were randomly assigned to three different conditions: 1. Care as usual (reading a personal account of having dementia), 2. VDT, and 3. VR-VDT. Participants in all the conditions completed pre- and post- assessments and were interviewed after completing the task. Empathy was operationalized through three validated assessments: Knowledge of AD, Attitudes about AD, and Caregiving Preparedness Scale. A total of 41 university students, who were recruited from the nursing and public health departments participated in the study. To analyze the data, three one-way ANOVAs using gain scores and planned contracts were conducted. There was a significant effect by condition (care as usual, VDT, and VR-VDT) on the Attitudes about Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment [F(2, 33)=11.6, p<0.001], the Knowledge of Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment [F(2,37)=4.77, p=0.01]; and the Caregiver Preparedness Scale [F(2,39)=4.90, p=0.01]. Planned contrasts demonstrated that VDT and VR-VDT were significantly different from care as usual for Attitudes about Alzheimer’s Disease, F=-9.12, p<0.01, Knowledge of Alzheimer’s Disease, F=2.10, p<0.01, and Preparedness for Caregiving, F=-.44, p=0.01). Our results show that both ADT and VR-ADT performed similarly to the control group, care as usual. The use of VR in healthcare is increasing and it may be a useful way to provide VDT to caregivers. An important finding from this study is that supplemental education may be provided along with VDT and VRVDT to effectively build empathy. While VR may be a great way to provide VDT to caregivers, this firsthand experience should be provided only to caregivers who are prepared to envision these symptoms of dementia.