Cognitive training with virtual reality at older people longterm residences

Abstract

Purpose: to describe a series of cases of older people with a clinical diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or dementia at elderly long-term residences using virtual reality as cognitive rehabilitation.Methods: this study is a series of cases. Older adults diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or dementia were included. Elderly people with visual and/or hearing problems that made it impossible to carry out the training were excluded. The same tests were used after intervention and at follow up after 15 days.Results: final sample consisted of 13 women and the mean age was 81.77 years (± 6.94). Patients were divided into 2 groups: mild cognitive impairment group and the dementia group. According to the therapeutic objectives aimed at improving fluency, among the results, the improvement in the scores to the group mild cognitive impairment stands out for the phonemic verbal fluency tests 23.63 (± 12.72) pre-test and 29.50 (± 11.14) post-test. There was an improvement in mild cognitive impairment group scores for the phonemic verbal fluency tests 23.63 (± 12.72) pretest and 29.50 (± 11.14) post-test. In the dementia group, test scores were 10 (± 5, 47) pretest and 12.80 (± 5.72) post-test. On the semantic verbal fluency test, the mild cognitive impairment group showed improvement 11.00 (± 3.62) pretest and 13.88 (± 6.03) post-test, while the dementia group test scores were 7.60 (± 4.56) pretest and 8.20 (± 5.12) post-test.Conclusion: regarding phonemic verbal fluency, virtual reality may be a good resource for improving the performance of older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Results were not maintained in the medium term, showing the importance of continual training.