LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Steve Staeger just saw and felt what it's like to be one of the 71,000 Coloradans with dementia. He immersed himself in a sensory experience to understand the disease. You can see more in the video above.
I’ll never forget that one moment of peace.
I had just walked out of a sensory overload, took off a pair of headphones, and enjoyed the quiet of a small room inside an office building.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to feel overwhelmed in that way. Confused, maybe, but not overwhelmed.
I had just finished the Virtual Dementia Tour, an immersive experience meant to mimic the symptoms of dementia patients, to give their caregivers and others an idea of what it feels like to be in that position.
“Most people think dementia is a little bit of a memory problem,” Amelia Schafer, executive director of the Colorado Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, told me.
“We know that when Alzheimer’s affects your brain and starts killing brain cells in a methodical pattern a lot of other things start to change as well...like how you process your visual field...the way you process what you hear...your ability to filter out noises and sounds,” she said.
So basically, as brain cells are killed by the disease, so go the filters our mind uses for things like sound. It’s often difficult for a dementia patient to focus on a conversation when ambient noise overtakes the room.
The tour, which uses headphones playing redundant ambient sounds, goggles that blur and darken your vision, gloves that make it difficult to complete small tasks.
"The whole purpose is for individuals who are really touched by Alzheimer’s or who work in the field... to get a sense of what it's like to live every day with the disease," Schafer said.
Schafer says the tour isn’t for everyone. The vendor screens participants to make sure they are emotionally prepared to take it.
“If I could give one piece of advice to caregivers it's let's not forget that humanity let's not forget this is just a person trying to make it and you're just a person who loves them try to help them make it through,” Schafer said.
If you are interested in taking the Virtual Dementia Tour, the Alzheimer’s Assocation’s helpline can help you connect with it: 1-800-272-3900.
