Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: As the Baby Boom generation ages, the number of older adults with a form of dementia (or major neurocognitive disorder) will rise. Agitation behaviors are frequently associated with dementia, which can have negative consequences for the individual and the nursing staff in long-term care (LTC) facilities. Often, pharmacological treatments are used to manage behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), but the medications prescribed often come with a myriad of side-effects. Nonpharmacological interventions hold great promise to manage BPSD. Interventions that incorporate sensory stimulation (i.e., techniques aimed at stimulating one or more senses with the goal of reducing agitation) have been successful at treating BPSD in individuals with dementia. Virtual reality (VR) technology may be thought of as sensory stimulation technique that is gaining in popularity as an assessment tool with older adults, but little research exists as to how VR can be used to reduce BPSD. The present study used a single-case research design with an ideographic approach to reduce agitation behaviors in two female participants. A blended single case experimental design was used combining the multiple-baseline design across individuals with a reversal design to examine the effects of VR nature scenes on agitation. Visual analysis was used to determine changes in mean, level, and latency of the behaviors. For both participants, a significant decrease in their respective agitation behaviors was observed during intervention phases. More research is needed to further investigate the utility of VR technology, but this study lends evidence for a brief, effective intervention to reduce agitation behaviors in LTC facilities.
Author: Allison Walden
Language: English
Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3081829725