A Feasibility Study with Image-Based Rendered Virtual Reality in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia

Valeria Manera (1) , Emmanuelle Chapoulie (2, 1) , Jérémy Bourgeois (1) , Rachid Guerchouche (2) , Renaud David (1) , Jan Ondrej (3) , George Drettakis (2) , Philippe Robert (1)

1 CobTek - Cognition Behaviour Technology
2 GRAPHDECO - GRAPHics and DEsign with hEterogeneous COntent
3 School of Computer Science and Statistics [Dublin]

Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a promising tool in many domains of therapy and rehabilitation , and has recently attracted the attention of researchers and clinicians working with elderly people with MCI, Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. Here we present a study testing the feasibility of using highly realistic image-based rendered VR with patients with MCI and dementia. We designed an attentional task to train selective and sustained attention, and we tested a VR and a paper version of this task in a single-session within-subjects design. Results showed that participants with MCI and dementia reported to be highly satisfied and interested in the task, and they reported high feelings of security, low discomfort , anxiety and fatigue. In addition, participants reported a preference for the VR condition compared to the paper condition, even if the task was more difficult. Interestingly, apathetic participants showed a preference for the VR condition stronger than that of non-apathetic participants. These findings suggest that VR-based training can be considered as an interesting tool to improve adherence to cognitive training in elderly people with cognitive impairment.

Domaines: Neurosciences; Synthèse d'image et réalité virtuelle [cs.GR]

Valeria Manera, Emmanuelle Chapoulie, Jérémy Bourgeois, Rachid Guerchouche, Renaud David, et al.. A Feasibility Study with Image-Based Rendered Virtual Reality in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia. PLoS ONE, 2016, 11 (3), pp.14. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0151487⟩. ⟨hal-01292254⟩