Project Overview

Ethical wellness care for the elderly is urgently needed as many residents in long term care are anxious, lethargic or depressed. Our society urgently requires more, and better, therapeutic options to deal with our aging, and increasingly long-lived population. Stats Canada estimates that close to 25% of Canadians will be over the age of 65 by 2036, increasing health-care costs and socioeconomic burdens. To deal with this challenge, Canada needs to develop innovative, evidence-based methods that can maintain wellness in the aging population without requiring an unsustainable increase in the number of caregivers. The Interactive Media Lab at the University of Toronto, with its extensive experience in human factors engineering and technology evaluation, will assist industry partner Praxis in evaluating its virtual reality (VR) for neurocognitive rehabilitation and preparing that technology for commercialization. Praxis has developed technology-enhanced mindfulness meditation (TEMM), which has shown promising results within a psychiatric practice. The motivation behind TEMM is to utilize knowledge of brain properties to provide immersive experiences that promote calm awareness, positive affect and sensory receptivity to external/environmental input. In this project we will evaluate the use and effectiveness of TEMM for seniors with cognitive impairment and dementia as a necessary step towards commercializing the technology. Praxis will refine its immersive multimedia suite based on our research results from field testing TEMM in long term care. The first phase of work will involve field testing and the second phase will involve scientific evaluation of TEMM in long term care and a comparative analysis of how TEMM outcomes vary across different settings (e.g., acute care vs. neuro-rehabilitation care vs. standard long term care). Outcomes assessed will include wellbeing, amount of stress-reduction and changes in cognitive function for people using the technology.