A new program is helping workers at Assisted Living Home Care Services in Westport get a better understanding of what their clients who are dealing with dementia live with.

"Dementia Live" is a three-piece immersive experience, that Julie Cruz, the director of the adult family living program for Assisted Living says is allowing people to immerse themselves in the life of a dementia client.

The program includes gloves which dull the sense of feel, glasses that cut off peripheral vision, and headphones, which play different sounds like people talking, radios and sirens out of each ear, with a disorienting effect.

"Clients that have cognitive impairments such as dementia clients - all of their senses have some sort of compromise to them," explained Cruz.

People are then asked to do every-day tasks like tying a pair of shoes, buttoning a shirt or taking pills, which dementia patients often struggle with.

Sometimes, the person participating even does the wrong task, which Cruz says could be because they cannot hear, or, because they cannot process the instructions.

"That is often what happens to a client with dementia, because there's so much going on in their brain," Cruz said.

Even nurses with decades of experience, like Cruz, say it is helping them get a better handle on what patients are going through.

"Normally, we would think that they're being difficult or listen to what we're saying, because we have never experienced it" she said, "but actually having gone through this, it gives you a much better perspective."

Cruz says she hopes that will lead to better of methods of care for dementia patients, besides just prescribing them medicine, which can lead to falls.

"There's way to re-direct them and get them to agree to do the activities with you," she said.

So far, Assisted Living has only started having staff go through the program, and Cruz says "some people even cried because it was that moving to go through."

The plan is to eventually also make Dementia Live available to families of patients with dementia.