Exploring the Immediate and Long-Term Effects of Immersive Virtual Reality on Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia and Caregiver Burden: Longitudinal Observational Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Virtual reality (VR) interventions are emerging as promising nonpharmacological strategies for people with dementia, aiming to prevent cognitive decline, reduce behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), and alleviate caregiver burden. Although some studies have reported beneficial effects, findings remain inconsistent, and little is known about the duration and sustainability of these effects, particularly in real-world care settings. Objective: This study aimed to examine both the immediate and long-term effects of an immersive VR reminiscence intervention on BPSD and caregiver burden in people with dementia attending day care centers. Methods: This longitudinal observational study was conducted in 10 dementia day care centers in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. A total of 82 participants with dementia were enrolled. The VR intervention consisted of twice-weekly sessions over one month, featuring culturally familiar live-action 360° scenes filmed in well-known Taiwanese locations. Each session lasted approximately 10-12 minutes and included interactive elements. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were assessed using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire, and caregiver burden was assessed using the Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview. Measurements were taken at 3 time points: preintervention, immediately postintervention, and 2 months after the intervention ended. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for statistical comparisons, and rank-biserial correlation was calculated as the effect size. Results: Significant improvements were observed after 1 month of VR intervention in both caregiver burden (Z=-3.095, P=.002, r=0.34) and neuropsychiatric symptoms (Z=-2.929, P=.003, r=0.32). At the two-month follow-up, neuropsychiatric symptoms remained significantly improved (Z=-4.327, P<.001, r=0.48), although caregiver burden returned to preintervention levels. Regarding specific neuropsychiatric symptoms, significant improvements were observed immediately after the intervention in dysphoria or depression, anxiety, and sleep or nighttime behaviors. These effects were sustained over time, with additional long-term improvements noted in euphoria or elation, apathy or indifference, irritability or lability, aberrant motor behavior, and appetite or eating behaviors. Conclusions: A 1-month immersive VR reminiscence intervention appears to improve neuropsychiatric symptoms and temporarily reduce caregiver burden in people with dementia, with some symptom improvements lasting up to 2 months. These findings suggest that VR may offer a meaningful therapeutic option in day care settings. Future studies with control groups, including nonimmersive 2D conditions, and comparisons to traditional reminiscence therapy are needed to validate and expand upon these findings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".