Abstract
In an attempt to make the therapeutic aspect less aversive, more attractive and engaging, virtual reality, an increasingly popular application in healthcare, offers an interesting alternative to pharmacological treatments. Positive emotions may improve the cognitive abilities of people suffering from cognitive impairment. Virtual reality can provide immersive and efficient relaxation tool. This paper presents an experiment where 19 people with Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) were immersed in a virtual environment representing a savannah. The hypothesis is that the environment may help them reducing their frustration by relaxing. Participants’ brain activity was recorded using the Emotiv Epoc headset and the virtual savannah experience lasted 10 min. Results suggest that frustration decreased when participants were surrounded by the virtual savannah and that the positive effects continued afterwards.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World population ageing, 2019 highlights (2020)
Dementia: number of people affected to triple in next 30 years. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/07-12-2017-dementia-number-of-people-affected-to-triple-in-next-30-years
Maples-Keller, J.L., Bunnell, B.E., Kim, S.-J., Rothbaum, B.O.: The use of virtual reality technology in the treatment of anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. Harvard Rev. Psychiatry 25, 103 (2017)
Ben Abdessalem, H., Byrns, A., Cuesta, M., Manera, V., Robert, P., Bruneau, M.-A., Belleville, S., Frasson, C.: Application of virtual travel for Alzheimer’s disease: In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Sensor Networks, pp. 52–60. SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications (2020)
Russell-Williams, J., Jaroudi, W., Perich, T., Hoscheidt, S., El Haj, M., Moustafa, A.A.: Mindfulness and meditation: treating cognitive impairment and reducing stress in dementia. Rev. Neurosci. 29, 791–804 (2018)
Wilson, E.O.: Biophilia. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts (1984)
Balling, J.D., Falk, J.H.: Development of visual preference for natural environments. Environ. Behav. 14, 5–28 (1982)
Frumkin, H.: Beyond toxicity: human health and the natural environment. Am. J. Prev. Med. 20, 234–240 (2001)
Glännfjord, F., Hemmingsson, H., Larsson Ranada, Å.: Elderly people’s perceptions of using Wii sports bowling–A qualitative study. Scand. J. Occup. Ther. 24, 329–338 (2017)
Monteiro, D., Liang, H.-N., Xu, W., Brucker, M., Nanjappan, V., Yue, Y.: Evaluating enjoyment, presence, and emulator sickness in VR games based on first-and third-person viewing perspectives. Comput. Animation Virtual Worlds 29, e1830 (2018)
Song, S., Yamada, S.: Ambient lights influence perception and decision-making. Front. Psychol. 9, 2685 (2019)
Choi, K., Suk, H.-J.: Dynamic lighting system for the learning environment: performance of elementary students. Opt. Express 24, A907–A916 (2016)
Minguillon, J., Lopez-Gordo, M.A., Renedo-Criado, D.A., Sanchez-Carrion, M.J., Pelayo, F.: Blue lighting accelerates post-stress relaxation: results of a preliminary study. PloS One 12 (2017)
Burden of disease from environmental noise - Quantification of healthy life years lost in Europe. https://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/publications/e94888/en/
Jiang, B., Li, D., Larsen, L., Sullivan, W.C.: A dose-response curve describing the relationship between urban tree cover density and self-reported stress recovery. Environ. Behav. 48, 607–629 (2016)
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge NSERC-CRD (National Science and Engineering Research Council Cooperative Research Development) and BMU for funding this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dakoure, C. et al. (2020). Virtual Savannah: An Effective Therapeutic and Relaxing Treatment for People with Subjective Cognitive Decline. In: Frasson, C., Bamidis, P., Vlamos, P. (eds) Brain Function Assessment in Learning. BFAL 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12462. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60735-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60735-7_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-60734-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-60735-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)