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Virtual Therapy System in a Multisensory Environment for Patients with Alzheimer’s

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Intelligent Systems and Applications (IntelliSys 2019)

Abstract

Alzheimer’s is one of the most common types of dementia, whose characteristics are manifested in symptoms such as memory loss, decreased ability to solve problems or even control their emotions, presenting changes in personality and normal behavior. Based such a background, the present project develops a prototype of a virtual therapy multisensory system aimed at the treatment and evaluation of a person with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in its initial phase, proposing games designed in a virtual reality environment based on 4 affected areas at the beginning of the AD such as memory, language, executive functions and gnostic functions. Therefore, the games proposed together with a video of immersive relaxation, allowed the patient to concentrate on the activity he was doing. The virtual therapy lasted 3 weeks with a total of 6 sessions, 2 sessions per week were performed, with an approximate duration of 20 min. The virtual therapy helped the patients to slow down the symptoms of the AD by improving their mood, in addition, it allowed them to relearn and remember words, places, objects that they forgot with the advance of the disease.

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Acknowledgment

The authors thank the Technical University of Ambato and the “Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo” (DIDE) for their support in carrying out this research, in the execution of the project “Plataforma Móvil Omnidireccional KUKA dotada de Inteligencia Artificial utilizando estrategias de Machine Learnig para Navegación Segura en Espacios no Controlados”, project code: PFISEI27.

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Correspondence to Patricio Encalada , Johana Medina , Santiago Manzano , Juan P. Pallo , Dennis Chicaiza , Carlos Gordón , Carlos Núñez or Diego F. Andaluz .

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Encalada, P. et al. (2020). Virtual Therapy System in a Multisensory Environment for Patients with Alzheimer’s. In: Bi, Y., Bhatia, R., Kapoor, S. (eds) Intelligent Systems and Applications. IntelliSys 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1038. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29513-4_57

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