Virtual tour helps to understand dementia
Next Tuesday, the Senior Citizens Center of Saratoga Springs and the Alzheimer's Association of Northeastern New York will help Capital Region residents understand the experiences of dementia sufferers with a virtual tour of the disorder.
The Virtual Dementia Tour (VDT) simulates the symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer's. Participants are outfitted with special equipment that helps them to experience different aspects of dementia and old age.
Goggles skew the vision of participants as if they suffer from macular degeneration or glaucoma, corn kernels are worn in shoes and gloves to replicate pain caused by nerve damage, and participants' fingers are taped together to show how difficult it is to handle objects when experiencing arthritis.
The subject also listens to a "confusion tape," which sounds like static and loud sirens or beeps that Alzheimer's patients sometimes complain of hearing.
The noise tends to cause confusion, frustration and irritability. Luckily, the participant can take off the headphones - but dementia sufferers cannot.
Test administrators then give instructions to the participant, making them perform simple tasks that are harder to understand, given the physical and mental impairments.
The virtual tour is administrated to many caregivers and nursing home attendants to help them understand age-related diseases so they can better provide help, and, most importantly, understanding, to the loved ones and patients they care for.
Dementia, similar to Alzheimer's, is an incurable decline in cognitive function that predominantly strikes senior citizens and causes disorientation, eventually disrupting a person's ability to perform basic tasks.
About 5.3 million people in the United States are currently living with Alzheimer's disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
Members of the community can take the VDT at the second annual Saratoga Springs Health and Wellness Fair on Aug. 18 from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. at the Saratoga Senior Center, located at 5 Williams St. in Saratoga Springs.
