Renaux Alexandre, Clanché Fabien, Muhla Frédéric, Duclos Karine, Meyer Philippe, Colnat-Coulbois Sophie, Gauchard Gérome
Development, Adaptation, and Handicap, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Lorraine, Lorraine, France.
CARE Grand Est, Research and Expertise Support Center, Nancy, France.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Jun 6;11:1141507. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1141507. eCollection 2023.
In recent years, immersive virtual reality technology has emerged in the field of health. Its use could allow the assessment of the motor behavior of individuals in adaptable and reproducible immersive environments, simulating real situations. This study aimed to assess the effect of an immersive scenario on functional mobility during a simple locomotor task according to age. Sixty young adults and 60 older volunteers, who were autonomous and without cognitive and neurological impairment participated. A locomotor task based on the "Timed Up and Go" task was performed in real and virtual conditions. A functional mobility score was calculated by combining the time and the number of steps used and compared between young and older people. Results showed that correlations between time and the number of steps were the same in VR and real conditions, but the locomotor performance decreased significantly in VR for both populations. Additionally, older people exhibited a more reduced locomotor performance in a virtual environment than young adults, thereby their functional mobility score decreased more to complete the task, reflecting the adoption of a more secure locomotion strategy often related to the fear of falling, with an increase in time and number of steps to support balance. The major difference between reality and VR is the visual immersion with an HMD, and visual information is more important in the sensory integration of older people. Therefore, the reduction in visual field and lack of visual exproprioceptive information about the body segments in the virtual environment could explain these results. Finally, the effect of immersion in a virtual scenario on mobility exists for both populations but is accentuated by the aging process and is therefore age dependent.
近年来，沉浸式虚拟现实技术已出现在健康领域。其应用能够在可适应且可重复的沉浸式环境中对个体的运动行为进行评估，模拟真实情境。本研究旨在根据年龄评估沉浸式场景对简单运动任务中功能移动性的影响。六十名年轻成年人和六十名老年志愿者参与其中，他们均为自主行动且无认知和神经损伤。基于“起立行走计时测试”任务进行了真实和虚拟条件下的运动任务。通过结合所用时间和步数计算功能移动性得分，并在年轻人和老年人之间进行比较。结果表明，虚拟现实（VR）和真实条件下时间与步数之间的相关性相同，但在VR环境中，两组人群的运动表现均显著下降。此外，老年人在虚拟环境中的运动表现比年轻人下降得更多，因此他们完成任务的功能移动性得分下降得更多，这反映出他们采取了更安全的运动策略，这通常与害怕跌倒有关，为了保持平衡，时间和步数都会增加。现实与VR之间的主要差异在于头戴式显示器（HMD）带来的视觉沉浸感，而视觉信息在老年人的感觉整合中更为重要。因此，虚拟环境中视野的缩小以及缺乏关于身体各部位的视觉本体感受信息可以解释这些结果。最后，沉浸在虚拟场景中对两组人群的移动性都有影响，但这种影响会因衰老过程而加剧，因此与年龄有关。
