This study aims to determine the influence of visual stimulation, using virtual reality, on the postural responses of YAs and OAs while performing the TUG tasks.
Using a Head Mounted Display (HMD) (HTC Vive Pro 2), a virtual scene displaying bright dots (i.e., “snowflakes”) was overlaid on top of the real scene, creating an augmented reality environment (Fig. 1). Thirty younger adults (15 females, age 23.7 ± 3.4) and 11 older adults (8 males, age 72.1 ± 5.2) completed the following four conditions in random order: (1) TUG, (2) TUG with HMD and no visual stimulation (TUGHMD), and (3) TUG with HMD and visual stimulation (TUGHMD VS). Motor performance was evaluated using four Shimmer™ wireless motion sensors (Shimmer Inc.) placed on the sternum, lumbar region, and both shanks. The dependent variables included gait speed and peak trunk velocity (PTV) during SiTSt, walking, turning, and StTSi.
A significant effect of visual stimulation was found across the three conditions for the following variables: StTSi pitch, yaw, and roll PTV; turning yaw PTV; StTSi pitch PTV; and gait speed (p 0.05). Compared to YAs, OAs showed significantly reduced gait speed and lower yaw and pitch PTV during walking, reduced pitch and yaw PTV during turning, and reduced pitch, yaw, and roll during StTSi (p 0.05).
Trunk kinematics during walking, turning, and StTSi, as well as gait speed, are sensitive variables to aging. Therefore, assessing these measures could be of great interest for evaluating fall risk in OAs.
A greater understanding of the postural responses of OAs, who tend to be more visually dependent than YAs under visually manipulated conditions, will help guide the development of clinical assessment and intervention tools to improve balance.
Aging
Virtual Reality
