VR headsets used to support dementia patients in Essex
They're hoping to jog patients' memories
Dementia patients in Essex are getting the chance to travel around the world all from the comfort of an arm chair.
Days at the Haven, in Southend, is using virtual reality headsets to help stimulate patients' memories.
Pamela Harvey is the manager of the centre. Whilst they've not had the headsets for long, she says they've already had a real impact: "It's just amazing, absolutely amazing!
"We've got a lot of people that have got very short term memories and they were all talking about it afterwards and were very engaged.
"It's like they were different people when they had the headsets on...
"We showed them a big house with a garden and one particular lady was bending down to try and touch things, pick up a book she was looking at and pointing to the to the trees and the butterflies. It was just incredible to see."
The VR headsets let staff tailor the experiences to help individual patients out: "We've got one gentleman who visits us who has family out in Australia. Obviously he can no longer go out there, but we can kind of bring Australia to him.
"We've not tried that one yet, but it's something that we hope will bring back memories for him so he can share them with us."
She's also not ruled out putting the patients on a VR rollercoaster just yet: "I'm not so sure how that would go but there's no reason why we can't give it a try! If they don't like it, we can just take it straight off, but you never know what they used to enjoy when they were younger because they don't remember.
"It's just trying to eek out their memories from before."
Pamela says they're also being used to train staff: "There are programmes which can give staff and carers the chance to find out what it's like to be somebody with dementia and get into their world.
"I'm hoping that these sets will help give people an idea of how differently we need to treat people with dementia because you can have all the training in the world, but until you really know how that person communicates, it's hard."