Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University are collaborating on a Social Engaging Restorative Virtual Environment project, which investigates virtual reality technology as a tool to address loneliness and social isolation among older adults. The five-year project began on Sept. 1 and is projected to end on May 31, 2028.
In the U.S., one-quarter of adults aged 65 and older are socially isolated, and over one-third of adults aged 45 and older report feelings of loneliness. Loneliness and social isolation have health consequences among older adults, including increased risk of dementia, depression, anxiety and mortality.
SERVE plans to address this loneliness epidemic based on the researchers’ previous findings that older adults responded positively to social interactions in VR. Through pilot studies, the researchers demonstrated that VR-based approaches may promote social connection.
“It’s not the case that older adults are technophobic,” said co-collaborator Prof. Walter Boot, geriatrics and palliative medicine. “For anyone to accept a piece of technology, they have to see perceived usefulness and perceived usability of that technology. Once you provide that to older adults, then there’s very high acceptance and enjoyment of these technologies.”
The SERVE project will study the prolonged effects of social engagement through VR on older adults with mild cognitive impairment. MCI is an early stage of memory and cognitive decline that occurs when an individual’s cognition is worse than expected for a person’s age but does not severely impair functional abilities.
“We target MCI because we see it as an important point of intervention,” Boot said. “These are people who are at risk for further cognitive decline. We can [intervene] at the point where we think there’s still lots of plasticity and … maybe prevent worse cognitive decline.”
Due to changes in cognition, older adults with MCI may be at greater risk of social isolation. To address the heightened risk, the researchers are planning a VR intervention study. According to project leader Prof. Saleh Kalantari, human centered design, the immersive nature of VR provides a unique context for studying human behavior.
The researchers hypothesize that spatial presence in social interactions will increase meaningful engagement and connection between participants and volunteers.
To compare social interactions that lack spatial presence with VR interactions, the researchers will conduct an initial 20-week clinical intervention. During the intervention, researchers will randomly assign participants and volunteers to the intervention or control group. In the control group, the participant and volunteer will interact with each other over Zoom, while in the intervention group, the participant and volunteer will interact with each other via VR technology.
Participants in the intervention group will do VR activities together such as seeing cities, completing wayfinding tasks in different settings and designing gardens. The proposed activities and spatial presence in the VR intervention group may enhance social and cognitive engagement. Therefore, among participants with MCI, the intervention may improve quality of life, decrease loneliness and improve cognition, according to Kalantari.
The researchers also plan to assess home-based methods for the study to evaluate the accessibility and scalability of VR intervention methods in the real world.
“There are challenges once you move into people’s homes beyond the laboratory environment that we’re all going to have to figure out as we’re moving forward,” Boot said. “These [home-based VR intervention methods] are things that we’re really excited about, but there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Taylor Rijos can be reached at [email protected].