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In neuropsychology and clinical psychology, the efficacy of virtual reality (VR) experiences for knowledge acquisition and the potential for modifying conduct are well documented. Consequently, the scope of VR experiences for educational purposes has expanded in the health field in recent years. In this study, we sought to assess the effectiveness of ViveDe in a psychoeducational caregiver program. ViveDe is a VR application that presents users with possible daily life situations from the perspective of individuals with dementia. These situations can be experienced in immersive mode through 360° video. This research aimed to ascertain the associations between the sense of presence that can be achieved in VR and some users' psychological characteristics, such as distress and empathetic disposition. The study involved 36 informal caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease. These participants were assessed using scales of anxiety and depression, perceived stress, empathy, and emotional regulation. They were asked to participate in a six-session psychoeducation program conducted online on dementia topics, in addition to experiencing the ViveDe application. The immersive VR sessions enabled the caregivers to directly experience the symptoms of dementia (e.g., spatial disorientation, agnosia, difficulty in problem-solving, and anomia) in everyday and social settings. The results indicated that although the experience in ViveDe (evaluated using the XRPS scale and five questions about emotional attunement) showed efficacy in producing a sense of first-person participation in the symptoms of dementia, further research is needed to confirm this. The structural equation model provided evidence that the characteristics of individuals who enjoy the VR experience play a determining role in the perceived sense of presence, which in turn affects the efficacy of the VR experience as a psychoeducational tool. Further research will be conducted to ascertain the potential role of these elements in conveying change in the caregivers of people with dementia. This will help us study the long-term effectiveness of a large-scale psychoeducation program in VR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Care for community‐dwelling people with dementia is frequently delegated to relatives, who find themselves in the role of informal caregivers with no practical management knowledge. This situation exposes caregivers to increased risk for emotional wellbeing. The current study aims to test whether the integration of the efficacy of an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience into an online psychoeducational program impacts caregiver empathy and therefore emotional wellbeing. Methods: One‐hundred informal caregivers of mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients will be enrolled and randomly assigned to (i) an online psychoeducational program (control arm); or (ii) an online psychoeducational program integrated with VR (experimental arm). VR will consist of 360‐degree videos involving the caregivers to an immersive experience of dementia symptoms from the patient's perspective. Before, after the intervention and after 2 months, all participants will complete validated clinical scales for caregiver burden and anxiety (primary outcomes) and sense of competence and dispositional empathy (secondary outcomes). A subsample of 50 participants will also undergo MRI exam, including structural and functional (resting‐state and task‐functional MRI [fMRI]) sequences. The fMRI task paradigm will use emotional stimuli to evaluate the neural correlate of empathy, by stressing its cognitive and affective components. The main outcome will be the change in the clinical assessment; the secondary outcome will be the change in brain connectivity of networks subserving the empathic and emotional functioning. Results: We expect that the psychoeducational program will decrease anxiety and stress, enabling caregivers to perceive themselves capable of managing AD patients at home, educating them on symptom handling and boosting their cognitive empathy. In the experimental intervention, the VR‐based experience will act as an add‐on to psychoeducation, leading to greater improvement in the assessed clinical dimensions. VR should, in fact, enable a deeper understanding of disease symptoms and improve caregivers' cognitive empathy. We expect that the experimental intervention will result in deeper comprehension of disease symptoms and further strengthen caregivers' cognitive empathy. At the neural level, we expect to observe increased activation in circuits subserving cognitive empathy and decreased activation in circuits underlying affective empathy. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first randomized controlled trial assessing the effect of combining psychoeducational interventions with VR‐based experience in caregivers, and assessing both clinical and imaging outcomes. Trial Registration: Registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05780476) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2006.02.006 Byline: Francesca Morganti (a)(b), Antonella Carassa (b), Giuliano Geminiani (c) Keywords: Spatial cognition; Virtual reality; Survey map; Planning in advance; Individual ability Abstract: In spatial cognition studies several cognitive factors were analysed in order to identify the aspect that could constitute the basis for the capacity of organising spatial knowledge into survey maps. This study presents a method for evaluating spatial ability, based on the capacity of obtaining a survey-type spatial knowledge organisation, in a recently explored virtual environment. The ability to plan optimal paths in virtual environments was examined in 40 female adult subjects. Spatial evaluation deriving from navigation of a simple virtual environment was compared with classical spatial survey tasks (wayfinding, pointing and sketch maps) performed after the active exploration of a complex virtual environment. Results show that there is a relationship between planning optimal paths and other spatial tasks related to survey representation. These findings highlight how the navigation-supported learning capacity results in a predictive factor for individuals' assessment of spatial ability. Author Affiliation: (a) Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Via Pelizza da Volpedo 14, 20149 Milano, Italy (b) Institute of Psychology and Sociology of Communication, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano, Via G. Buffi 13, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland (c) Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Via Po 14, 10123 Torino, Italy

Objective. To investigate the technical and clinical viability of using computer-facilitated mental practice in the rehabilitation of upper-limb hemiparesis following stroke. Design. A single-case study. Setting. Academic-affiliated rehabilitation center. Participant. [...]

Abstract Background Topographical disorientation represents one of the main consequences of brain injury. Up to now several methodological approaches have been used in the assessment of the brain injured patient's navigational abilities showing a moderate correlation with the impairments observed in everyday contexts. Methods We propose a combination of standardized neuropsychological tests and a more situated virtual reality-based assessment for the evaluation of spatial orientation in brain injured patients. Results When tested with this virtual reality integrated procedure patients showed performance and execution times congruent with their neuropsychological evaluation. When compared to a control group, patients revealed significantly slower times and greater errors in solving virtual reality based spatial tasks. Conclusion The use of virtual reality, when combined with classical neuropsychological tests, can provide an effective tool for the study of topographical disorientation.