Jan sits upright on his chair, his hand resting on his stick, then suddenly he fidgets, turns his head as if he is looking for something, pushes his chair, turns it. The host, David, just put virtual reality glasses on his head and headphones in his ears. Immediately, the unborn carrier transports the musical Seine of Boulogne-Billancourt, in the middle of the Insula Orchestra show that Beethoven plays.
Physically, Jan stayed in the dining room at Ehpad Lasserre, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, but his mind went to Ile Seguin. For thirty minutes, the Resident attends the scene in a completely separate episode from the others.
Beside him, Françoise and Yvette are wearing the same helmet, and they are seated at a good distance from each other. One tries in vain to delve into Dounié Rousseau’s painting, when the other coils are on board the Orléans Flying Train. “It’s wonderful, I saw the tests of this train every week, at that time,” she said, memories of the youth in her head.
Entertainment in complete confinement
Since July 2020, the nursing home has been offering these little escape moments to its residents, who are sometimes highly cognitively influenced, thanks to the virtual reality headsets provided by Hauts-de-Seine County Council. Arte, RFI Labo and Wild Immersion have produced 27 films and documentaries each lasting from five to ten minutes. They lead users through different environments, such as heritage, music, nature or history.
At the end of the first incarceration, three nursing homes volunteered to experiment with this technological experiment with the elderly, including the Aulnier Foundation, in Asniere-sur-Seine, and Le Marounier, in Levallois-Perret. In January, the Les Pins residency has progressed in Boulogne-Billancourt, and now the management wants to popularize this project called Horizon, which currently has a cost of € 50,000.
We launched it last spring amid a health crisis. We were working to spread virtual reality in the educational field, when the Immersive Learning Lab was in France [NDLR : association de promotion des technologies immersives] She offered us to test the technology in nursing homes because it was a time when residents could no longer have a lot of fun or see their families, ”recalls Florence Silvestre, responsible for the college digital environment on the department board.
Musical past of a resident
“Our residents were able to see things they were no longer accustomed to seeing and take a few minutes away from everyday life,” explains Chloe Leblond. About a year later, the director of the nursing home, Lasserre, was convinced of the device, which she saw, however, at first, as a “tool.”
“If done well, it allows us to play on the memories of the population. They like and adapt to all profiles, including those with more cognitive difficulties. Or even better: they let themselves drift into the experience more because they have less superego.” From others, “she adds.
Such a generally indifferent and silent resident, who suddenly began setting tempo and singing, a virtual showtime. “And so we were able to discover one of her last memories because she has a big musical past that we didn’t know. When she’s a little anxious, we know now that we can turn on music for her to calm her down.”
So Chloe Leblond plans to take a therapeutic twist to the experience in order to improve elder care, she says.
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