Neurocognitive Treatment for a Patient with Alzheimer's Disease Using a Virtual Reality Navigational Environment

Abstract

In this case study, a man at the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was enrolled in a cognitive treatment program based upon spatial navigation in a virtual reality (VR) environment. We trained him to navigate to targets in a symmetric, landmark-less virtual building. Our research goals were to determine whether an individual with AD could learn to navigate in a simple VR navigation (VRN) environment and whether that training could also bring real-life cognitive benefits. The results show that our participant learned to perfectly navigate to desired targets in the VRN environment over the course of the training program. Furthermore, subjective feedback from his primary caregiver (his wife) indicated that his skill at navigating while driving improved noticeably and that he enjoyed cognitive improvement in his daily life at home. These results suggest that VRN treatments might benefit other people with AD.

Use of Immersive Virtual Reality in the Assessment and Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease: A Systematic Review

“…There was a lack of longitudinal studies. Case studies focused on cognitive training in AD [40,41] noted high patient engagement and subjective benefit for the participants with cognitive measures remaining stable over a significant period (28 weeks for both) and improved performance shown on a spatial cognition task [40]. It will be important to complete larger longitudinal studies to address longer term response to treatment.…”

“…Acceptability of the technology was explored in detail through a 30-min semi structured interview: participants reported enjoying the iVR training more than the standard physiotherapy sessions which they found repetitive. [40] This case study with a single participant looked at whether a patient with AD could engage with and learn from an iVR navigation program completed using HMD and innovative wheel chair control. No details were given about diagnostic criteria used.…”

“…Despite lack of significant therapeutic benefit, participants with AD and MCI reported enjoying treatment tasks. These ranged from fruit picking as an alternative to standard physiotherapy [39] to car racing for vestibular rehabilitation [42] and simulated navigation tasks [40,41]. Increased engagement should be considered a positive factor in designing training system for participants with cognitive deficits.…”

The Emergent Role of Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Neuropsychiatric Disease

“…Associated with specific exercises, VR assisted rehabilitation becomes interesting for both social and functional rehabilitation (Laver et al, 2015 ; Dockx et al, 2016 ; White and Moussavi, 2016 ; Fernandez Montenegro and Argyriou, 2017 ). The overall system using a treadmill or an exoskeleton plus a chosen specific virtual environment might have an important impact for post-traumatic injuries or diseases with neuromuscular disturbances and degeneration (Villiger et al, 2013 ; Pietrzak et al, 2014 ).…”

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) for Route Reversal Learning

“…Virtual reality environments (VEs) have been widely used as assessment tools in human navigation studies due to their flexibility, accessibility and controllability compared to real environments (REs) [1][2][3][4][5][6]. To design a virtual model of an RE, typically a Computer-Aided Drawing (CAD) software such as Autodesk 3ds Max is used, and the geometry and texture from the RE is manually programmed to develop a virtual replica [4].…”