Alana Fisher, “Going Home: Reminiscence Intervention for Asian Immigrants with Dementia”
Mentor: Yura Lee, Social Work, Social Welfare (Helen Bader School of)
Poster #115
Older Asian adults account for more than 8% of dementia cases, despite being less than 6% of the nation’s population. However, geographical, financial, and health challenges can make revisiting their home countries difficult. This program uses virtual reality to create a virtual home environment, helping to alleviate the sense of longing for home in this population. Going Home (GH) is a technology-based, culturally responsive reminiscence program designed for Asian immigrant persons with dementia (PwD). With our interdisciplinary team from social work, neurology, and electrical engineering, we aim to design, develop and test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary psychosocial outcomes of the GH Program. We will recruit 10 Asian PwD and their 10 caregivers from Milwaukee, Chicago, and South Bend via flyers through targeting specific community organizations. The population includes Korean, Chinese, Hmong, Vietnamese, and Filipino families. This six-week program will incorporate the five senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell) using prompts related to home, such as favorite cultural songs, traditional food, and family photos. We will then use survey data, observational summaries, and qualitative data from participants to create 10 systematic case studies. We expect that participating in GH will improve mood, cognition, quality of life, and behavioral and psychological symptoms among PwD’s, enhance mood, positive aspects of caregiving, and caregiver self-efficacy while reducing caregiving burden among family caregivers; and improve the relationship quality between PwD and their caregivers. This study is innovative as it addresses the cultural needs of Asian families and actively engages PwD to share stories of home by recognizing cultural heritage and family traditions, thereby strengthening mutual understanding and relationships with caregivers. The long-term goal of the GH program is to improve the quality of life among underserved racial and ethnic groups by enhancing their access to culturally responsive dementia care.