VR Training on Caring for People with Dementia

Results

Partnering with HQSoftware, the customer — Dementia Reality — received an immersive VR training program that helps professionals and families learn how to care for people with dementia by demonstrating basic routines, and how to avoid certain typical mistakes that have a negative emotional impact.

By building a custom compressing module, we ensured seamless and quick video downloading, increasing its usability for training.

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Business Development Manager

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Customer

The Dementia Reality project emerged from a collaboration between two US-based non-profit organizations: CJE SeniorLife, a provider of a wide range of senior care services, and Elderwerks, which offers older adults and families senior living coordination, advocacy, and education.

Currently, many nursing homes and home health care agencies face a shortage of certified nursing assistants and other care workers to provide qualified care for people with dementia. At the same time, some form of dementia is diagnosed every 3 seconds worldwide, further increasing the demand for qualified staff.

One reason for the high turnover rate among caregivers is the lack of adequate training. Dementia Reality aims to address this issue by developing a training program in VR. This training will immerse users in the world of people with dementia, enabling professionals and families to perceive their experiences firsthand, enhancing the quality of care and fostering increased empathy.

Solution

When the customer turned to HQSoftware, they already had a VR simulation that had failed to satisfy them. Our team’s challenge was to create a comprehensive VR training from scratch.

The resulting solution consists of two parts: a VR simulation and a web application for module management.

The VR simulation provides immersive modules about various aspects of caring for people with dementia, challenges and potential mistakes, encompassing:

• daily living activities and their challenges;
• behavior management;
• dining services;
• communication and engagement.

The creation and management of learning modules is the responsibility of the web application, the front-end and back-end of which were developed by our team. Other features of the web app include:

• enrolling and managing new users;
• offering discount systems;
• providing analytics on a dynamic dashboard in real time.

Dashboard

User management

Challenges

Initially, the 360-degree videos to be displayed in VR were extremely large, significantly slowing down downloading into a headset. Also, a headset had to be active during video downloading, which required users to keep it on for an extended period.

To eliminate these inconveniences, our team removed the dipping of a headset into a sleeping mode and built a converter module that compresses videos, significantly speeding up video downloading.

Team

• 1 full-stack developer;
• 1 Unity-developer (part-time);
• 1 QA engineer (part-time);
• 1 Project Manager (part-time);
• 1 designer (part-time)

Learn more about our VR development services.