Virtual Environments in the diagnosis, prevention and intervention of age-related diseases

A group of world-wide VR and health-care researchers have decided to join their efforts in a multidisciplinary project named VETERAN - Virtual Environments in the diagnosis, prevention and intervention of age-related diseases. The main goal of the VETERAN project is the tuning and testing of different virtual environments, to be used in the diagnosis, prevention and intervention of different age-related diseases. In particular the developed modules will address the following pathologies that have a strong impact on the elderly health care policy: Alzheimer's disease and other senile dementias; stroke and unilateral spatial neglect; mobility-related accidents within specific environments (e.g. falls, shocks). The project will focus on research into clinical aspects of age-related diseases and disorders of high morbidity with significant prospects of prevention, treatment or delay in onset. The final goal of the VETERAN project is the definition of new protocols and tools to be used in rehabilitation. The developed tools will be able to provide systematic restorative training within the context of functionally relevant, ecologically valid simulated environments. This will optimize the degree of transfer of training and/or generalization of learning to the person's real world environment.