An Indiana University Indianapolis researcher will receive $200,000 from the Alzheimer’s Association to advance the use of virtual reality to help individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
“There’s really not much out there for people with dementia in terms of easily accessible therapy,” said Hee-Tae Jung, an assistant professor of health informatics at the IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, who will lead the study. “The best-case scenario after diagnosis is a patient seeks out a clinic-based therapy supervised by a certified occupational therapist. But if a patient doesn’t seek out these therapies, or they can’t afford it, then they’re most likely to simply stay at home.”
The goal of this project is to develop a VR-based solution — using an affordable headset and common smartphone — so individuals can practice basic skills, like cooking a meal, in a safe environment with minimal oversight from a caregiver.
“This is an area in which software developers can contribute to the larger challenge of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias,” said Jung, adding that it’s estimated these conditions will affect over 150 million people by 2050. “There’s really a big gap right now between the few products on the market and the needs of the people with these conditions. People’s needs are simply not well reflected in the current technology.”
To understand how VR technology could help, Jung is working with dementia care organizations across Indiana and the nation, as well as directly with individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Other groups with which Jung engages include Dementia Action Alliance; Stillwaters Adult Day Center and Joy’s House in Indianapolis; and Jill’s House in Bloomington. The insights from these groups will inform the work conducted under the Alzheimer’s Association grant.
“During our preliminary research, one thing that stood out strongly to me was how people living with dementia and their caregivers do not give up; they work very hard to stay engaged and stay independent,” Jung said. “The challenge is achieving those goals in the face of limited resources and limited or declining cognitive function.”
For example, Jung said the people with whom he spoke often worked hard to adjust their living environment to accommodate failing memory. A common example was cooking, with individuals often reorganizing their kitchens to make ingredients and cooking implements clearly visible and easily reachable. They might put their spices in alphabetical order with the labels facing outward to reduce the cognitive burden of preparing a meal, for instance. But figuring out the most effective system often requires a high degree of trial-and-error, during which the risk of accidents is greater. VR offers a safe space to practice these skills without real-life hazards like cuts or burns, Jung said.
The technology could also be applied to practicing other common tasks, such as cleaning or laundry.
“Virtual reality gives users the chance to experiment with different arrangements and determine the level of complexity that’s right for them, without risk of injury,” he said. “Then they can work with a spouse or other caregiver to adapt their real-life environment in order to apply what they learned in VR to it.”
To create the virtual environments, Jung’s lab will use Google Cardboard SDK, an open-source environment for creating immersive cross-platform VR experiences for Android and iOS. The software development will also be informed by additional user research in partnership with individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia.
Erica Babb, an IU Ph.D. student in health and biomedical informatics at the Luddy School in Indianapolis, will assist in the work.
Jung will conduct a clinical trial to test the technology’s effectiveness. The trial will include two groups: an experimental group who will practice household tasks in VR and a control group who will be given a book of crosswords and other puzzles to strengthen memory — a task that clinicians commonly recommended to people with dementia.
This work will occur in partnership with Chang Dae Lee, an assistant professor at the IU School of Health and Human Sciences in Indianapolis, who is a co-primary investigator on the grant; and Dr. Liana G. Apostolova, IU Distinguished Professor and associate dean of Alzheimer’s disease research at the IU School of Medicine, who will serve as senior personnel on the project.
An occupational therapist with experience offering care in clinical and home-based environments, Lee will support the project’s effort to offer VR-based therapy in participant’s homes. As senior personnel, Apostolova will share her extensive experience on research with individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, including her role serving as the primary investigator on the country’s largest study of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Enrollment in the trial is expected to begin in spring 2026 after software development is complete.
