Deakin University in partnership with SilVR Adventures and Villa Maria Catholic Homes has been awarded an ARIIA grant for their ‘Implementation of an innovative virtual reality experience for people living with mild dementia in residential aged care’ project.
This project will implement and evaluate innovative virtual reality experiences for residential aged care residents with mild dementia. The virtual reality experiences have been designed specifically for older people and provide the ability to go on a wide variety of virtual tours to places that may not be otherwise possible, e.g. a trip to the Eiffel Tower. The experiences can also be undertaken together in groups with others, enabling social interaction.
Loneliness and social isolation are significant challenges for those living in residential aged care and the COVID-19 pandemic has made this even more challenging. Reminiscing and story sharing activities have been shown to have a positive impact on those with mild dementia. The virtual reality experiences will be deployed at pilot scale to three residential aged care sites.
The feasibility of using the virtual reality experiences in residential aged care settings will be evaluated in this research project. The user experience in using the virtual reality experiences will also be evaluated, as well as quality of life and wellbeing outcomes.