The Impact of Virtual Reality-Based Products on Mild Cognitive Impairment Senior Subjects: An Experimental Study Using Multiple Sources of Data

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in pensioners has become an important concern in the aging population, and there are an increasing number of products, especially virtual reality (VR)-based products, to assist in the identification, intervention, and treatment of MCI older adults. Multiple studies on the efficacy and usability of VR products are also receiving increased attention from designers. However, issues such as the efficacy testing of VR products still face serious challenges. In this study, we evaluated VR products looking at the interactive responsiveness of MCI older adults when using VR products, and analyzed the brain activation status and behavioral conditions of MCI older adults. Multisource data were generated by a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device with high spatial resolution and a behavioral recording device reflecting motor abilities. Small-wave amplitudes were selected as indicators of brain activation to analyze six brain areas: LPFC, RPFC, LOL, ROL, LMC, and RMC. Eight aspects, such as overall upper-limb speed, upper-limb global acceleration, and median velocity, were selected as indicators for behavioral recording. The differences were observed by comparing the level of completion of interactive responses by MCI older adults between the two groups. The results showed that MCI older adults showed different levels of activation in brain regions when performing VR product-based tasks. The higher the level of cognition, the better the interactive response in the task and the stronger the activation of brain regions. Meanwhile, the level of interaction response had a significant correlation with the motor performance of MCI older adults, with stronger motor functions leading to a more effective interaction response to the product. This study proposes a new method to evaluate the feasibility of monitoring the interaction between the MCI elderly and VR-based products using fNIRS with Kinect, which provides a new way to evaluate the effectiveness of VR-based product-assisted treatment.