Quinnipiac Students, Faculty and Staff Experience Dementia Firsthand Through Virtual Dementia Tour

Press release

Quinnipiac University students, faculty and staff experience dementia firsthand through Virtual Dementia Tour

NORTH HAVEN, Conn. – Dec. 10, 2025 – On Thursday, Dec. 4, the lights dimmed inside the model apartment on Quinnipiac University’s North Haven Campus, and the world shifted for 25 students, faculty and staff. For a few minutes, they entered a reality marked by confusion, sensory overload and isolation — the everyday landscape for people living with dementia.

The experience was part of the Virtual Dementia Tour (VDT), brought to campus through a collaboration between Quinnipiac University’s Center for Interprofessional Healthcare Education and Hartford HealthCare. The hands-on simulation, used internationally since 2001, is designed to give caregivers, clinicians and community members a vivid understanding of the cognitive, behavioral and sensory challenges that people with dementia face.

Angela Christie, a dementia specialist for Hartford HealthCare’s Center for Healthy Aging, explained the purpose of the tour:
“What we’re doing here today is dementia education,” she said. “This is an immersive experience that allows you to feel how someone living with dementia lives. We accomplish that by altering your senses, creating a kind of sensory overload. Participants wear goggles, gloves, headphones and inserts in their shoes, and we even use a flashing light, because many people with dementia report seeing flickering lights and not knowing what to make of them.”
Participants are then asked to complete simple tasks they might do at home, even though they often can’t hear the instructions or see clearly. They’re in the room for about eight minutes and afterward talk about what they experienced and how it relates to dementia.
“What we really want them to gain is empathy — to understand how it actually feels to live this way,” Christie added.
For physical therapy students Kevin Barry and Anne Beckman, the impact was immediate. Barry, a third-year Doctor of Physical Therapy major, emerged from the dim simulation room visibly stunned.
“It was definitely very eye-opening,” he said. “We learn a lot about this in class, but obviously it’s hard to really put yourself in somebody else’s shoes, and this is exactly what that does. It gives you that much more empathy toward people that are going through something like that. It really changes the way that you want to interact with these people going forward, knowing what they experience.”
What struck him most was the disorientation and the fear that came with it.
“What hit me the most was not being able to hear a single thing that was told to me,” he said. “I just had to wander around for about eight minutes, literally not knowing what to do with myself. I expected to get the tasks and not be able to do them but not even being able to hear the task — that was the weirdest thing. And yeah, it was the longest eight minutes of your life.”
Barry said the tour will shape the kind of clinician he becomes.
“You really see how much you need to be able to communicate with these people, and not only communicate, but make sure they’re understanding what you’re communicating,” he said. “It makes you think about what they’re doing on their own time and how you can help them capitalize on what they’re actually able to do. You never know what can make their challenges even a little easier.”
For Beckman, another Doctor of Physical Therapy student, the simulation was equally intense.
“That was a lot, definitely,” she said. “We did something similar to this in my program, so I thought I had an idea of what to expect, but this was very different and a lot more intense.”
Asked to describe the experience in a few words, she did not hesitate.
“I said overwhelming, frustrating and confusing.”
Like Barry, Beckman said the tour reshaped how she will approach patient care.
“As a future clinician, being able to understand what my patients with dementia are going through, now that I’ve done this, is super important,” she said. “Now I can work on ways and strategies of how I’m going to treat these patients and communicate with them in a way that helps combat that frustration and overwhelming sense they’re having just from the sensory changes they experience.”
She believes opportunities like the Virtual Dementia Tour should be widespread in healthcare education.
“Yeah, definitely. I think it’s the best way to get a sense of what these patients are going through,” she said. “I was amazed how real it felt.”
During her time in the simulation, Beckman recalled hearing only fragments of instructions such as “put the coins in the purse” and “put the batteries in the flashlight.” The rest was swallowed by the chaotic, disorienting soundscape purposely engineered to mimic cognitive overload.
“At one point, I actually started walking out of the room,” she said. “And the caregiver came back and pulled me in, like I was wandering. Which I thought was really weird, but also really real.”
She managed to complete some tasks, such as getting the batteries into the flashlight, but others were impossible to even begin.
“It was just so hard to hear anything clearly,” she said. “That alone made everything confusing.”
Organizers said that is the point. Dementia affects millions of Americans, with a new case of Alzheimer’s diagnosed every 68 seconds, yet caregivers often lack the training needed to interpret behaviors rooted in sensory and cognitive decline. Hartford HealthCare offers the Virtual Dementia Tour and other programs as part of its commitment to caregiver education, healthy aging and dementia support.
The VDT uses patented eyewear, audio devices, gloves and shoe inserts to distort perception, motor skills and spatial awareness. The result is a brief but powerful window into the daily frustrations that people with dementia experience — including agitation, disorientation, difficulty understanding instructions and the overwhelming nature of routine tasks.
Julie Booth, director of the Center for Interprofessional Healthcare Education and clinical associate professor of physical therapy, said the experience helps students connect classroom learning with real-world challenges.
“They learn about dementia in class, especially the cognitive piece,” Booth said, “but this lets them actually apply it. It shows them what it’s like to try to do daily activities when your cognition is impacted, even something as simple as trying to tie your shoes while wearing gloves.”
Experts note that seven out of 10 people with dementia live at home, and more than 78 percent of their care is provided by family and friends, many of whom have little training. Proper education can reduce frustration, prevent caregiver burnout and even decrease the risk of elder abuse and neglect.
For students like Barry and Beckman, the simulation was more than a class exercise. It reshaped their clinical mindset, and the empathy they gained will guide them long after graduation.
As Barry put it, “This really shows you what they’re going through, and it changes how you want to care for them.”
Beckman agreed.
“This is how we learn to truly help people,” she said. “By understanding what their world feels like.”
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