Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Jul 12, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 2, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Let´s bake pizza in our virtual cottage! Exploring the benefits of Virtual Reality group activity for well-being and mental capacities to enhance seniors living in nursing home
ABSTRACT
Background:
Besides illness, inactivity is a risk factor for high mortality in nursing homes. Using innovative technology, such as Virtual Reality (VR), for meaningful group activities could provide new opportunities for solving this problem. VR interventions have already been approved as a promising method for health enhancement of older adults.
Objective:
In this exploratory feasibility study, we examined whether VR-based group activities can have a positive impact on activity level and group interaction in seniors living in nursing homes.
Methods:
We provide VR-interventions as a group activity once a week for four consecutive weeks in the nursing home. Within a virtual cottage, designed according to the needs of the target group, seniors were able to perform daily tasks that they were no longer able to do in real life, such as gardening and making pizza. A total of 84 seniors from 14 nursing homes completed at least three VR interventions. Their psychosocial capacities, activity of daily life, and well-being were evaluated regularly over the course.
Results:
The results indicate that some of the seniors' psychosocial capacities improved, including adherence to regulations, flexibility, and competence. Additionally, the VR intervention promoted their proactivity and mobility. During the VR-group intervention, seniors' well-being could be maintained at a high level.
Conclusions:
The VR intervention was well accepted and fulfilled the aim of capacity and wellbeing enhancement. It could be a meaningful group activity in nursing homes to improve social group interaction. To provide stronger evidence randomized controlled trials are necessary.
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