Simulation Re-creates the Experience of Living With Dementia

I was confused. The woman at the senior living home told me to listen for the music, but all I could hear was the hubbub of a loud room and many indistinct voices talking at once. She instructed me to find a People magazine in the handbag on the table in front of me, then turn to a specific page. (Did she say 43 or 45?) But I struggled to open the bag — my vision was blurry, and my fingers fumbled with the zipper.

I had barely started the first task when the woman grabbed my arm and gave me a second set of instructions, then a third. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, nor could I read her lips, because she was standing behind me.

“What?” I shouted repeatedly, getting agitated. Meanwhile, the woman impatiently hiked my pants up from behind, then pushed me down in a chair without warning, seemingly annoyed by my ineptitude. My feet ached, and I was panting heavily. I felt frustrated and helpless.

“We’re trying to lift up your pants because they’re falling down,” said Tanya Seeley, the woman giving me the instructions. “We’re telling you to hurry up because your daughter is coming to pick you up, and I have many other people to care for before I go to lunch.”

Normally, Seeley isn’t this gruff and insensitive — quite the contrary. A 20-year veteran of eldercare, she runs a memory care wing, called Reflections, at the Residence at Quarry Hill, a South Burlington senior living community of about 110 residents. The five-minute simulation we had just gone through, called A Walk in Their Shoes, was designed to provide a realistic taste of what it’s like to have Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Dementia is not a single disease but a spectrum of symptoms that includes memory loss, difficulty thinking, and behavioral, speech and mobility impairments. It afflicts more than 7 million Americans, including 17,000 Vermonters, most of whom are over the age of 65.

Although A Walk in Their Shoes was created as a training tool for professional caregivers, it is now also being used to help families and friends understand the ways in which they can add to — or ease — the struggles of dementia patients. There’s a growing need for such understanding as the baby boom generation moves into old age. Many of those boomers will stay in their own homes, dependent on the care of family members who lack formal training in cognitive impairments.

A Walk in Their Shoes was created about a decade ago by Quarry Hill’s parent company, LCB Senior Living, of Norwood, Mass., to better prepare its own staff to work with residents with mild to severe cognitive impairments. Every employee of the company’s 41 facilities throughout New England undergoes the simulation as part of their training.

Shortly after the simulation’s adoption, LCB recognized the benefits of offering the experience to other people in the community, including family caregivers, first responders and hospice care workers. Quarry Hill now offers A Walk in Their Shoes about once a month at local churches, synagogues, libraries and senior centers.

When I first heard about the dementia simulation, I assumed it would involve a computer device such as a laptop, gaming console or virtual reality headset that would test my memory and cognitive acumen. In fact, the exercise is remarkably low-tech but effective at re-creating the physical and emotional challenges of dementia.

In a small, windowless room at Quarry Hill, Lydia Raymond, Quarry Hill’s executive director, outfitted me with a pair of green-and-black headphones, while Seeley gave me green gloves with rubber bands binding some of my fingers together. I was also asked to put on nose plugs and sunglasses and, oddly, sprinkle a handful of dried beans into each of my shoes.

As Seeley explained later, each element simulates a specific physical or sensory impairment suffered by those who are elderly and in cognitive decline. The rubber-banded fingers mimicked arthritis and loss of dexterity, while the dried beans created the sensation of nerve pain in the feet. The glasses, modified to produce blurred and spotty vision, simulated cataracts or glaucoma. The nose plugs restricted my breathing, making it even harder to focus. And the headphones, which played loud and distracting noises, impaired my hearing and made the entire experience chaotic and disorienting.

Even the green-and-black color scheme was a deliberate choice. As Seeley explained, green is the last color that people with severe dementia can see — black, the most threatening. The latter can be especially problematic, given that many first responders often wear black or dark uniforms.

My reaction to the simulation — confusion, frustration, annoyance — was fairly typical, Seeley said. She’s had participants get furious at her because they couldn’t hear what she was saying or couldn’t complete the requested tasks as quickly as others.

“I got nauseous and very claustrophobic,” Raymond recalled about her own experience with the simulation when she was hired in 2018.

“The noise is a lot, too, while I was trying to figure out what to do,” said Kallie Holowaty, a caregiver at Quarry Hill who went through the simulation at the same time I did.

Throughout the exercise, Raymond and Seeley deliberately behaved in ways that they never would toward residents with actual dementia: They grabbed and spoke to me from behind; they didn’t make eye contact; they shouted and hurried me along to complete tasks even though it was obvious that I couldn’t understand their instructions.

“For somebody with cognitive impairment,” Raymond said, “you have to take your time and slow down.”

A Walk in Their Shoes does more than just simulate the visceral sensations of dementia. It also provides a deeper understanding of the many steps involved in performing even routine daily tasks, which can be extremely confusing for people with Alzheimer’s, the most common form of cognitive impairment.

As Seeley explained, people with mid- to late-stage dementia might lose the ability to understand four out of every six words spoken in a sentence. If they’re told, “It’s time to brush your teeth,” they might start brushing their hair instead — or use their toothbrush to clean the sink. If they’re told that dinner is ready and it’s time to go to the dining room, they may reply “No!” — not because they’re being obstinate but because they don’t remember who will be there or are afraid of getting lost on the way there.

“Remember, the person with dementia is not giving you a hard time,” Seeley added. “They are having a hard time.”

The goal of the exercise isn’t just to simulate the effects of cognitive decline but to help caregivers understand what they can do to ease the person’s struggles rather than make them worse: Make eye contact, smile, speak to them face-to-face and provide slow, clear instructions using simple terms.

Observing the simulation that day was Michaele Esposito, 89. She’s a longtime Quarry Hill resident whose late husband, Fred, had Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and lived in the Reflections wing until he died in 2018. Esposito didn’t need to experience the simulation herself. She witnessed her husband’s struggles every day for more than nine years. What was it like for her to watch others go through it?

“It was very real. It brought tears to my eyes,” she said. “In different ways, it was him!”

While A Walk in Their Shoes can’t relieve dementia symptoms, it can help caregivers better appreciate the struggles of people with dementia, suggest strategies for helping them and, perhaps, increase patience for what they’re going through.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Into the Fog | A Vermont senior living facility offers an interactive simulation that re-creates the experience of living with dementia”

This article appears in The Wellness Issue • 2026.

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