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Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan

BACKGROUND: Virtual reality (VR) has several applications in the medical domain and also generates a secure environment to carry out activities. Evaluation of the effectiveness of VR among older populations revealed positive effects of VR as a tool to reduce risks of falls and also improve the socia...

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Autores principales: Syed-Abdul, Shabbir, Malwade, Shwetambara, Nursetyo, Aldilas Achmad, Sood, Mishika, Bhatia, Madhu, Barsasella, Diana, Liu, Megan F., Chang, Chia-Chi, Srinivasan, Kathiravan, M., Raja, Li, Yu-Chuan Jack
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6699111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31426766
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1218-8
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author Syed-Abdul, Shabbir
Malwade, Shwetambara
Nursetyo, Aldilas Achmad
Sood, Mishika
Bhatia, Madhu
Barsasella, Diana
Liu, Megan F.
Chang, Chia-Chi
Srinivasan, Kathiravan
M., Raja
Li, Yu-Chuan Jack
author_facet Syed-Abdul, Shabbir
Malwade, Shwetambara
Nursetyo, Aldilas Achmad
Sood, Mishika
Bhatia, Madhu
Barsasella, Diana
Liu, Megan F.
Chang, Chia-Chi
Srinivasan, Kathiravan
M., Raja
Li, Yu-Chuan Jack
author_sort Syed-Abdul, Shabbir
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Virtual reality (VR) has several applications in the medical domain and also generates a secure environment to carry out activities. Evaluation of the effectiveness of VR among older populations revealed positive effects of VR as a tool to reduce risks of falls and also improve the social and emotional well-being of older adults. The decline in physical and mental health, the loss of functional capabilities, and a weakening of social ties represent obstacles towards active aging among older adults and indicate a need for support. Existing research focused on the effects of VR among older populations, and its uses and benefits. Our study investigated the acceptance and use of VR by the elderly. METHODS: This pilot study was conducted on 30 older adults who voluntarily participated during March to May 2018. Nine VR applications that promote physical activities, motivate users, and provide entertainment were chosen for this study. Participants were asked to use any one of the applications of their choice for 15 min twice a week for 6 weeks. At the end of 6 weeks, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model and a literature review, to evaluate their acceptance of VR technology. Cronbach’s alpha reliability analysis was used to test the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. Pearson’s product moment correlation was used to examine the validity of the questionnaire. A linear regression and mediation analysis were utilized to identify relationships among the variables of the questionnaire. RESULTS: In total, six male and 24 female participants aged 60~95 years volunteered to participate in the study. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social norms, and perceived enjoyment were seen to have had significant effects on the intention to use VR. Participants agreed to a large extent regarding the perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and their experience of using VR. Thus, VR was seen to have high acceptance among this elderly population. CONCLUSIONS: Older people have positive perceptions towards accepting and using VR to support active aging. They perceived VR to be useful, easy to use, and an enjoyable experience, implying positive attitudes toward adopting this new technology. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-019-1218-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-66991112019-08-26 Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan Syed-Abdul, Shabbir Malwade, Shwetambara Nursetyo, Aldilas Achmad Sood, Mishika Bhatia, Madhu Barsasella, Diana Liu, Megan F. Chang, Chia-Chi Srinivasan, Kathiravan M., Raja Li, Yu-Chuan Jack BMC Geriatr Research Article BACKGROUND: Virtual reality (VR) has several applications in the medical domain and also generates a secure environment to carry out activities. Evaluation of the effectiveness of VR among older populations revealed positive effects of VR as a tool to reduce risks of falls and also improve the social and emotional well-being of older adults. The decline in physical and mental health, the loss of functional capabilities, and a weakening of social ties represent obstacles towards active aging among older adults and indicate a need for support. Existing research focused on the effects of VR among older populations, and its uses and benefits. Our study investigated the acceptance and use of VR by the elderly. METHODS: This pilot study was conducted on 30 older adults who voluntarily participated during March to May 2018. Nine VR applications that promote physical activities, motivate users, and provide entertainment were chosen for this study. Participants were asked to use any one of the applications of their choice for 15 min twice a week for 6 weeks. At the end of 6 weeks, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model and a literature review, to evaluate their acceptance of VR technology. Cronbach’s alpha reliability analysis was used to test the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. Pearson’s product moment correlation was used to examine the validity of the questionnaire. A linear regression and mediation analysis were utilized to identify relationships among the variables of the questionnaire. RESULTS: In total, six male and 24 female participants aged 60~95 years volunteered to participate in the study. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social norms, and perceived enjoyment were seen to have had significant effects on the intention to use VR. Participants agreed to a large extent regarding the perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and their experience of using VR. Thus, VR was seen to have high acceptance among this elderly population. CONCLUSIONS: Older people have positive perceptions towards accepting and using VR to support active aging. They perceived VR to be useful, easy to use, and an enjoyable experience, implying positive attitudes toward adopting this new technology. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-019-1218-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-08-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6699111/ /pubmed/31426766 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1218-8 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Syed-Abdul, Shabbir
Malwade, Shwetambara
Nursetyo, Aldilas Achmad
Sood, Mishika
Bhatia, Madhu
Barsasella, Diana
Liu, Megan F.
Chang, Chia-Chi
Srinivasan, Kathiravan
M., Raja
Li, Yu-Chuan Jack
Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan
title Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan
title_full Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan
title_fullStr Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan
title_full_unstemmed Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan
title_short Virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from Taiwan
title_sort virtual reality among the elderly: a usefulness and acceptance study from taiwan
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6699111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31426766
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1218-8
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