Effects of Community-Based Virtual Reality on Daily Activities and Quality of Life

Abstract

Aims

To examine the effects of immersive virtual reality (VR) on self-identified daily activities and quality of life (QOL) of older adults with and without cognitive impairments and identify their preferred VR apps.

Methods

One group, pretest-posttest study of a total of eight 30-minute VR sessions over five weeks at a senior center. Measures included the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, the World Health Organization QOL-BREF, and a preference questionnaire.

Results

Improvements in activity performance (p = 0.047) and satisfaction (p = 0.016) for all participants (n = 16; mean age = 69.76, SD = 5.14; 14 females), no differences in QOL, with reported preferences of leisure-oriented apps. Upon subgroup analysis based on cognition, the group with cognitive impairments (n = 7) did not report increases in activity performance (p = 0.497) while the group without cognitive impairment (n = 9) reported performance increases (p = 0.018).

Conclusions

In a community-based setting, leisure-oriented immersive VR may improve daily activity perceptions for older adults, regardless of mild cognitive impairments.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02703181.2022.2033903 .

Keywords:

• Older adults
• virtual reality
• cognition
• occupational performance
• occupational satisfaction

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the site director, Karen Rouse, staff, and members at Journey’s Way. The data collection was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy for second and third authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Genesis Center for Aging Research and Education grant. The date of trial registration was December 12, 2018, under Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT03784053.