Virtual Reality activities for seniors
Bringing the beneficial cognitive, social and physical effects of immersive training to the high-functioning senior home-user.
We are developing an online service to provide scientifically validated virtual reality activities for high-functioning seniors and prolong their functional independence.
It addresses multiple issues for numerous stakeholders; most importantly:
​
The lack of engaging exercise programs featuring proven, well-documented beneficial effects, that seniors can participate in, on their own, at home.
​
The remote monitoring of seniors’ cognitive and physical abilities by their family and doctors.
​
Optimising resources and revenue in rehabilitation clinics and senior care homes.
Overview
Three startups (Senopi, Sensoryx, The Music Medicine Consultancy) enter the project with prototypes of their innovative solutions for:
​
Providing Virtual Reality (VR) experiences to seniors.
VR motion-tracking.
​
Using music to promote health.
Our prototypes are subjected to usability testing, co-design, and co-creation workshops, with the help of terzStiftung that promotes the interests of seniors towards the development of innovative solutions, to produce an improved solution that integrates the three initial components into a single service.
To investigate whether the use of the service can result in health benefits for healthy and high-functioning seniors, a clinical intervention study is conducted at the Medical University of Lodz.
In parallel, the service is tested by clinician and patient end-users in the CatoSenteret rehabilitation clinic, who produce complementary user feedback, leading to further improvements of the service.
The final version of the service is subjected to a final usability test, to assess its market-readiness.
Objective
Project results
The main product developed as part of CoSoPhy_FX is SenopiMed, a pioneering medical device software (MDSW) developed using virtual reality (VR) technology. SenopiMed provides an accessible, fun and easy-to-use solution for seniors to perform physical and cognitive training. The VR-based training offers exercises targeting physical activity, attention, working memory, and processing speed, as it provides a comprehensive cognitive and upper body workout aiming to improve their overall well-being and quality of life. The product features adaptive difficulty levels in the user’s preferred 360-degree natural environment, and their preferred music genre provided by The Music Medicine Consultancy, offering seniors a novel and fun approach to motor-cognitive training. Furthermore, a prototype feature for SenopiMed, to perform VR physiotherapy standing up using a sensor provided by SensoryX, was developed.
terzStiftung in Switzerland has performed usability studies with more than 30 older adults, resulting in valuable feedback to shape SenopiMed. Following this, a 3-month interventional clinical study was done by Medical University of Lodz in Poland with 130 healthy older adults using SenopiMed at home. This resulted in a 74% compliance and overall increase in the participants cognitive health. SenopiMed was furthermore tested at CatoSenteret in Norway to receive secondary/tertiary end-user input and test the product standing up (with appropriate safety measures to mitigate adverse effects), also leveraging the sensor technology of SensoryX.
Partners
Consortium partners
Funding partners
This project is co-founded by the AAL Programme, the Swiss Innovation Agency Innosuisse, the Research Council of Norway, the Polish National Centre for Research and Development and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, under the AAL project CoSoPhy_FX (project number AAL-2020-7-215-CP).
Events
Consortium partners
in-person meeting
11-13 July 2023
"The Music Medical Consultancy" hosted the consortium partners in-person meeting in Austria, Viena.
Pilot study
by CatoSenteret
August - December 2023
A clinical study will be held in the city of Son, Norway with the scope of integrating phisiotherapies in a Virtual Reality setup
Pilot studies by
terzStiftung
July 2021 - October 2021
The initial pilot studies where healthy older adults will be testing VR headsets at home for 4 weeks have started.
Usability studies
by terzStiftung
Jan 2023 - Apr 2023
A usability study has started with 30 seniors participating divided into two groups. The aim is to gather information from a user experience perspective.
Poster participation at
CYPSY26 in Paris
11-13 July 2023
Our project will be showcased in a poster in the 26th Annual Cyberpsychology, Cybertherapy & Social Networking Conference.
Consortium partners
in-person meeting
22-23 June 2023
The "Medical University of Lodz" hosted the consortium partners in-person meeting in Lodz, Poland
Consortium partners
in-person meeting
07 February 2023
CatoSenteret hosted representative members of each consortium partner to discuss and evaluate the future development of our project.
Clinical study in the Medical University of Lodz
April 2022 - May 2023
A clinical study has started with healthy seniors (200 participants) in home setting over 3 months performing 4 different cognitive therapies.
Tag der Therapien
in Zürich
05 October 2022
We presented our products at the conference “New Technologies in Geriatrics”, in Zurich. There were more than 70 participants.
Alzheimer Europe
Annual Conference
17-19 October 2022
The CoSoPhyFX team will be present in the 32nd Alzheimer Europe conference that will be taking place in Bucharest, Romania.
Ageing Well Week
Gdansk
18-20 October 2022
The Ageing Well Week aims to be the main European platform for sharing knowledge and showcasing innovation in the active and healthy ageing sector.