During the pandemic it became increasingly apparent there needed to be an easy way to train family members who had to serve as caregivers for their elderly relatives.
The Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio (COA) may have found the answer, not only for family members but for any caregiver.
EVRTalk is a virtual reality program which presents five different scenarios caregivers may face when assisting others.
While there is no shortage of scenarios, COA and the University of Cincinnati’s XR-Lab narrowed it down to five from 100.
- Learning medication management
- Starting the conversation on incontinence
- Talking down a hallucination
- Caregiver burnout
- Having a conversation about end-of-life wishes
Anna Goubeaux is a caregiver support nurse for COA. It took awhile for her to become a believer in virtual reality and EVRTalk. But she is now.
"I am not a technology lover," she says. "I am very intimidated by technology, so when they asked me to be on this project I thought, 'First of all, why are you asking me?' I did not believe it was possible to create empathy in a caregiver (this way)."
But Goubeaux says it is possible, and she has seen it work.
COA Project Manager Antoinette Moore is spreading the word about EVRTalk at support groups and events around the community.
"Everybody's been shocked and surprised. People put on a headset and they're immersed into a different experience and you're trying to figure out is it a video game? Is it a learning tool? What is it?"
Moore says it is a learning tool that helps people understand the skills of providing that care-giving support to individuals.
Jai’La Nored is senior innovation designer at COA and says the organization uses technology every day. "We don't just look at a technology solution for today. We look at it for the senior five years from now, the senior 10 years from now."
Nored is already looking ahead to additional training scenarios and various ways they can be delivered outside of VR.
COA isn't the only organization utilizing VR to train caregivers. Some area memory care facilities also use it, as WVXU reported in this story in 2020.
