Building empathy among caregivers and healthcare providers is an important aspect of treating dementia, and virtual reality (VR) offers a way for people to experience what it’s like living with these conditions. One company, Embodied Labs, developed a virtual reality experience to help train caregivers and medical students on Lewy body dementia (LBD).
The virtual reality program is called The Dima Lab, where users experience different types of dementia-related conditions through protagonists with diverse backgrounds. In one situation, users experience Lewy body dementia through the eyes of a Lebanese-American Muslim woman named Dima. Dima also has symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a nervous system disorder that results in tremors and problems with movement.
Lewy body dementia is a common form of dementia that involves problems with planning, thinking and memory. Hallucinations and loss of focus or concentration, as well as decreased mobility, are signature symptoms of the condition.
