{
  "abstract": "Introduction\n\nAnxiety is a prevalent behavioral and psychological symptom of dementia (BPSD) in older adults with cognitive impairment, severely diminishing their quality of life. Although reminiscence therapy (RT) is a promising non-pharmacological intervention, objective neurophysiological methods to evaluate its immediate emotional impact remain unexplored. This pilot study proposed \"Smart Reminiscence Therapy (SRT)\" - a novel virtual reality (VR) system integrated with synchronized multisensory stimuli - and evaluated its immediate anxiety-reducing effects and the utility of electrophysiological measures.Methods\n\nA single-session, single-arm pre-post exploratory design was adopted. Twenty older adults (aged 65 years or older) at a day service center, with Mini-Mental State Examination-Japanese (MMSE-J) scores of 11-30, participated. The intervention consisted of a 10-min SRT session featuring a 1960s Japanese townscape. The primary outcome was objective resting-state eye-closed frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) via a wearable EEG device, while subjective state anxiety via the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was evaluated as a secondary outcome.Results\n\nAfter excluding three participants with excessive artifacts, 17 participants (mean age: 85.9 ± 5.9 years; mean MMSE-J: 23.8 ± 3.8, with 64.7% clustered in the MCI-to-mild-dementia range) were analyzed. Subjective STAI scores showed a non-significant decreasing trend with a moderate effect size (p = 0.088, r = 0.414). Conversely, the FAA index significantly increased post-intervention (p = 0.038, Cohen's d = 0.55). No significant correlation was found between changes in STAI and FAA (r = -0.15, p = 0.562).Conclusion\n\nA single session of SRT was associated with an increase in FAA; however, the uncontrolled design precludes causal attribution to the intervention. The dissociation between subjective reports and neurophysiological changes suggests that FAA may complement self-reported measures by capturing aspects of acute emotional change that may be difficult to verbalize in people with cognitive impairment. The non-significant but moderate-sized reduction in STAI scores warrants confirmation in larger controlled studies.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Occupational Therapy, Morinomiya University of Medical Sciences, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Graduate School of Rehabilitation Science, Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Department of Clinical Pharmacy Research and Education, The University of Osaka Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Social Welfare Corporation Misasagikai, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Graduate School of Engineering Science, The University of Osaka, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Department of Science and Engineering, Otemon Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Osaka Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Osaka, Japan.",
    "Department of Psychiatry, The University of Osaka Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 9,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Keita Ueno"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Kazuyuki Niki"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Hiroyuki Tanaka"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Takeshi Okuda"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Daisuke Iwai"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Kosuke Sato"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Yasuo Naito"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Toshinori Ito"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        7
      ],
      "name": "Ryouhei Ishii"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/cdcn43jnzmbyg.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3389/fnagi.2026.1958403",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13687045",
  "id": "cdcn43jnzmbyg",
  "issns": [
    "1663-4365"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42923251",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2738|Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220901767",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13687045?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13687045",
  "pmid": "42923251",
  "published": "2026-10-08",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/cdcn43jnzmbyg.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:20:36Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42923251",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42923251"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "openalex:2738|Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research",
      "subfield": "psychiatry"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Immediate anxiety-reducing effects of multisensory virtual reality reminiscence therapy in older adults with a wide range of cognitive functions: a pilot study using electrophysiological measures.",
  "title_text": "Immediate anxiety-reducing effects of multisensory virtual reality reminiscence therapy in older adults with a wide range of cognitive functions: a pilot study using electrophysiological measures.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:20:36Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/cdcn43jnzmbyg",
  "venue": "Frontiers in aging neuroscience",
  "versions": []
}