Forget-It

The Netherlands is a country with a lot of variety in ethnicity which makes it very fun to live in because of all the different cultures and people around us. Yet for some people living in a foreign country as immigrants brings some problems, for example for the elderly. Studies have shown that immigrants as opposed to natives get worse care because the health care system isn’t (yet) designed for immigrants. My team and I found the fact that not everyone gets equal quality of care, very weird and thus chose to design a solution to better the lives of elderly immigrants with dementia (because this is an even more overlooked group).

After thinking of an AR room to simulate the country of origin and other ideas and concepts, I came up with the idea of a VR game. A Virtual Reality game with a compelling story causing the user to experience and feel as if they have dementia. The purpose of the game is to increase the empathy of the user for elderly patients with dementia. By playing the game the user can experience how it is to live the life as the target group, this way the user gains knowledge on the sickness dementia as a whole but also how proper care can be given to people with dementia. Because the user develops a feeling of compassion for the target group and because the user gets more knowledge by playing the game, the user is able to give patients with dementia better and more fitting care. By combining empathy with compassion and knowledge forget-it will be able to create a care for dementia patients like never seen before. A better and more fitting care for these patients will in turn give them a happier and better life.

A short video I directed and edited showing how it would look like if the user had a VR headset on and played our game.