Geared up in headphones, glasses and thick gloves, groups of people were led into a special room at Village Crossing at Worman's Mill, an assisted living and memory care facility in Frederick, on Tuesday.
The headphones were playing sounds that almost sounded like static and chatter, as well as an occasional loud noise like an ambulance siren or a door slamming.
The glasses were tinted yellow and had dark spots in the center of people's vision, and the gloves diminished the sense of touch.
People also were told to put certain pieces of plastic in their shoes, which poked at their feet as they walked around the room, to simulate peripheral neuropathy.
Those individuals -- staff members of Village Crossing -- were participating in a virtual immersive dementia tour, which simulates what people living with the condition hear, feel and see.
Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning, such as thinking, remembering and reasoning, to the point that it interferes with a person's daily life and activities, according to the National Institute of Aging.
Some forms of dementia include Alzheimer's disease -- the most common dementia diagnosis -- Parkinson's disease dementia, Huntington's disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, according to the Alzheimer's Assocation.
The virtual dementia tour is provided by the nonprofit Second Wind Dreams.
When a group's time slot to participate finally came, they would garb up and be led one by one into a dark room with an occasional flashing light.
They were told simple tasks to do, such as putting on an apron or putting medication in pill boxes, and stayed in the room for eight minutes while attempting to do the tasks.
After all the group's participants had left the room, they removed their simulation gear and had a debriefing session.
Village Crossing is one of six facilities owned and operated by SageLife.
Kim Smith, vice president of operations for SageLife and a Second Wind Dreams facilitator, spoke with participants during the debrief sessions.
She said this is the first time this tour has been offered at Village Crossing as part of the staff's dementia training.
What she likes about this tour, she said, is that it's so immersive and that after participants come out, they have a lot to say about what they'll do differently when working with patients who have dementia.
"Everything within the tour has a purpose. ...When you're going through the process, we don't answer questions or tell you what everything means, and then afterwards, we talk about, we explain what everything meant," Smith said.
She said she hopes participants "understand dementia a little bit more ... and that their empathy and compassion for folks with dementia, it's a little bit better."
During one of those debriefs, Smith said she saw a lot of emotions when people came out of the simulation -- sadness, anxiety, confusion. She asked participants to talk more about how they felt.
Kumba Bah said going through the simulation made her sad -- she teared up while talking during the debrief.
She said it's extremely painful to watch a loved one experience dementia, and people seeing them from the outside may wonder what's actually going on in those relatives' heads but can't fully understand.
"What I experienced today, this is just half of what they're going through every day," Bah said. "It's really sad. It's a sad situation to see somebody going through that."
Ashley Kamukama said the experience was overstimulating and confusing. She said it was hard to hear the tasks being read off and couldn't read the instruction lists placed around the simulation room, so she wasn't sure exactly what to do either.
With all the sensory stimulation, it was hard to complete a simple task.
Multiple participants said that after going through the virtual dementia tour, they want to work on being much more patient with residents in their care who have dementia, as well as do things more slowly.
Kamukama said she had no idea what to expect going into the tour, and it was much harder than she anticipated -- but she's glad she did it.
"For somebody to be going through such a thing ... they're stuck in that, which kind of makes me emotional because it's just a lot," she said.
"... I've always wanted to kind of get an idea of what they're going through because obviously, you see it, but you can't really understand, so being in that room was like, 'Oh my gosh.' For someone to go through that, it's a lot."