It is estimated that there are currently fifty million people living with dementia worldwide. An accurate and early diagnosis of dementia is important in order to initiate appropriate treatment programs as soon as possible. Common methods of neuropsychological assessment can be sensitive to external factors which may compromise accuracy. The aim of this thesis was to investigate techniques that have the potential for the detection of dementia that avoid some of the external influences. The thesis looked at measurements of (i) postural stability (ii) facial analysis and (iii) fully-immersive virtual reality in cognitively-healthy individuals. These techniques were chosen as postural stability and facial analysis change in dementia and whilst virtual reality has previously been used in dementia research, fully-immersive virtual reality measures have not been established. To see if the measurements were associated with cognitive function, participants completed a series of cognitive tests. Results indicate that all techniques explored shared a relationship with memory performance, with lower anteroposterior postural sway (F(1,22) = 17.76, p < 0.01), number of activities participated in that involve a posture element (F(2, 39) = 3.77, p < .05; Wilk's Λ = 0.84, partial η2 = 0.16), the greater the frequency of negative facial expressions (F(2, 18) = 4.49, p < .05; Wilk's Λ = 0.67, partial η2 = 0.33.), and low blink rate (t(11.02) = 2.62 p < .05) all showing better scores on memory tests. Moreover, better scores on the fullyimmersive virtual reality task predicted better scores on with short-term memory (F(1,22) = 20.20 p < 0.01), LTM (F(1,22) = 09.10 p < .01), associative learning (F(1,22) = 08.75 p < .01), and a dual–task test (F(1,22) = 04.64 p < .05). The novel findings that elements such as postural stability, participation in sports, facial expressions of emotion, blink rates, and spatial memory as assessed in fully-immersive virtual reality highlight that non-invasive techniques can provide measurements that correspond to cognitive ability. This may hold implications for dementia diagnoses. Future research should assess whether these relationships can also be found in an older adult population. If this relationship is found in older adults, it could justify further research into how these techniques could be applied in a clinical context.

Virtual Reality is rapidly growing in popularity. This new medium offers manypossibilities for those who wish to explore what the technology provides in the 3Denvironment. However, the design principles that have been used for decades revolvearound 2D surfaces and applying them in the 3D space can cause severalincompatibility issues that diminishes the user experience.This study aimed to help highlight what aspects of virtual reality need to be improvedcompared to non-virtual reality platforms to enhance the user experience. To do this,VRChat, a virtual reality platform was chosen, which can be used by both VR, and nonVR headset users alike. By comparing these two user bases it could help highlight thepros and cons of the current system and help give guidelines on how to create futureVR platforms. During the test period, 58 people participated who did specific tasks onthe platform and filled out the quantitative data gathering survey, based on the UserExperience Questionnaire (UEQ) test.After comparing the two user bases, the result shows that there is no significantdifference between using VRChat either way allowing both user bases to enjoy theplatform equally. However, because of these results, the work failed to highlight whataspects of a VR platform need to be changed to fit the needs of VR headset users. Itimplies the need for further research and experimenting with the medium. In the future,further research, testing and experimentation are needed to improve the current designmodels and make the systems more pleasant for VR headset users.