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Clinical Trial
. 2023 Feb 8;23(4):1896.
doi: 10.3390/s23041896.

Functional Living Skills in Patients with Major Neurocognitive Disorder Due to Degenerative or Non-Degenerative Conditions: Effectiveness of a Non-Immersive Virtual Reality Training

Simonetta Panerai  1 , Valentina Catania  1 , Francesco Rundo  2 , Domenica Tasca  1 , Sabrina Musso  1 , Claudio Babiloni  3 , Giuseppina Prestianni  1 , Stefano Muratore  1 , Raffaele Ferri  4
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Functional Living Skills in Patients with Major Neurocognitive Disorder Due to Degenerative or Non-Degenerative Conditions: Effectiveness of a Non-Immersive Virtual Reality Training

Simonetta Panerai et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Virtual reality has gained attention as an effective tool for cognitive, motor, and daily activity rehabilitation in patients with major neurocognitive disorder (M-NCD). The first objective of this study was to check for differences between M-NCD caused by degenerative and non-degenerative conditions (DC and NDC, respectively) in terms of relearning four functional living skills (FLSs), by means of a non-immersive virtual reality training (VRT). The second purpose was to verify whether spontaneous transfer from the virtual environment to the real environment occurred. Four FLS apps were developed in our institute (Information, Suitcase, Medicine, and Supermarket). A nonrandomized interventional study was carried out, comparing experimental and control groups (EG and CG, respectively). The study included three phases: in vivo test at T1; VRT at T2 only for EG; in vivo test at T3. During the in vivo test, the four FLSs were assessed in their natural environments. Both EG-DC and EG-NDC significantly improved in all of the VRT variable scores (the EG-NDC group seemed to show better outcomes than the EG-DC group). Moderate-to-high satisfaction with the VRT was reported. EG-DC and EG-NDC also enhanced their performances in the in vivo test. No statistically significant differences between them were found. CG-DC and CG-NDC improved only in the execution time of Information in the in vivo test. These findings confirm the ecological validity of VRT for FLSs.

Keywords: degenerative dementia; functional living skills; neurocognitive disorders; non-degenerative dementia; virtual reality.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Median number of correct responses, missing responses, and clues, and median values of the total execution time (expressed in s), observed in both degenerative and non-degenerative conditions (DC and NDC) of the EG across the 10 VRT sessions, for each task.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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