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Dementia Healthcare XR

Goals

The rising prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, among individuals aged 65 and above in the United States is expected to double from 6.5 million to approximately 13.8 million by 2050, signaling a surge of about 4.7%. Behavioral symptoms manifest in 90% of individuals living with dementia, profoundly impacting patients, families, and healthcare costs globally. Insufficient healthcare and allied professionals' education on the management of these symptoms exacerbate this impact, leading to suboptimal dementia care. 

Our research project aims to develop a gamified, extended reality-enabled, self-paced behavioral training application (G-XRBT app) to enhance competence among healthcare students through the combination of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality to provide seamless immersive experiential learning experiences in a virtual environment. The G-XRBT app will simulate care provision interactions with diverse avatars with dementia exhibiting behavior symptoms, offering a realistic and immersive learning environment for undergraduate students across healthcare disciplines. By engaging with scenarios and educational resources within the G-XRBT platform, students will acquire dementia knowledge and improve their skills in managing behavioral symptoms in dementia, ultimately improving quality of life, and reducing caregiver and institutional burdens when providing care as healthcare professionals upon graduation.

Experience Gained

Our project is centered around a series of top-level research activities, each meticulously designed to directly contribute to achieving our project goal. These activities are not just theoretical, but practical, enabling students to acquire and hone the desired skills in their specific fields.

  • Explore and comprehend the integration of game elements, such as points, badges, and challenges, into non-game learning contexts.
  • Develop a matching dataset using behavioral symptoms and evidence-based non-pharmacological interventions.
  • Develop diverse learning scenarios in which healthcare professionals manage behavioral symptoms.
  • Monitor the overall performance of the G-XRBT  app by providing feedback based on interactions with the app and observing changes in the behavior of realistic avatars with dementia displaying behavioral symptoms due to the care provided.
  • Participate in designing and disseminating recruitment information.
  • Participate in and support relevant data collection processes.
  • Explore and comprehend multimodal data, encompassing narrative and numerical data.
  • Use appropriate data analysis methods to analyze collected data.
  • Review and synthesize findings from relevant current state-of-the-art literature.
  • Drafting and disseminating the research findings through peer-reviewed publications and presentations at internal and external venues such as conferences, webinars, and workshops.

Majors and Interests Needed

Students from the following majors, who are ready to learn.

  • Computer Game Design and Development
  • Computer Science 
  • Data Science
  • Engineering 
  • English--Creative & Professional Writing
  • Exercise Science 
  • Information Technology/Systems  
  • Integrated Health Science 
  • Human Services
  • Nursing 
  • Psychology
  • Public Health
  • Social Work
  • Sociology
  • Software Engineering

Team Advisors

  • Name
    Title
    Email
  • Modupe Adewuyi
    Associate Professor, Nursing
  • Joy Li
    Associate Professor, Computer Game Design and Development, Research Director of the Realities Lab

 

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