Chatterjee Rashmita, Moussavi Zahra
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Price Faculty of Engineering, University of Manitoba, 75 Chancellors Cir, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 5V6, Canada.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Price Faculty of Engineering, University of Manitoba, 75 Chancellors Cir, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 5V6, Canada.
Med Biol Eng Comput. 2025 May;63(5):1355-1365. doi: 10.1007/s11517-024-03270-1. Epub 2024 Dec 26.
Spatial impairment characterizes Alzheimer's disease (AD) from its earliest stages. We present the design and preliminary evaluation of "Barn Ruins," a serious virtual reality (VR) wayfinding game for early-stage AD. Barn Ruins is tailored to the cognitive abilities of this population, featuring simple controls and error-based scoring system. Ten younger adults, ten cognitively healthy older adults, and ten age-matched individuals with AD participated in this study. They underwent cognitive assessments using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) before gameplay. The game involves navigating a virtual environment to find a target room, with increasing levels of difficulty. This study aimed to confirm the cognitive sensitivity of the Barn Ruins' spatial learning score by studying its relationship with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores. MoCA scores and spatial learning scores had a correlation coefficient of 0.755 (p < 0.001). Logistic regression further revealed that higher spatial learning scores significantly predicted lower odds of cognitive impairment (OR = 0.495, 95% CI [0.274, 0.746], p < 0.005). The initial results suggest that the game is effective in differentiating performance among participant groups. This research demonstrates the potential of the Barn Ruins game as an innovative tool for assessing spatial navigation in AD, highlighting areas for future validation and investigation as a training tool.
空间障碍是阿尔茨海默病（AD）早期阶段的特征。我们介绍了“谷仓废墟”的设计和初步评估，这是一款针对早期AD患者的严肃虚拟现实（VR）寻路游戏。“谷仓废墟”是根据这一人群的认知能力量身定制的，具有简单的控制和基于错误的评分系统。十名年轻成年人、十名认知健康的老年人和十名年龄匹配的AD患者参与了这项研究。他们在游戏前使用蒙特利尔认知评估量表（MoCA）和蒙哥马利-Åsberg抑郁评定量表（MADRS）进行了认知评估。游戏要求在虚拟环境中导航以找到目标房间，难度逐渐增加。本研究旨在通过研究其与蒙特利尔认知评估量表（MoCA）分数的关系，确认“谷仓废墟”空间学习分数的认知敏感性。MoCA分数与空间学习分数的相关系数为0.755（p<0.001）。逻辑回归进一步显示，较高的空间学习分数显著预测较低的认知障碍几率（OR=0.495，95%CI[0.274，0.746]，p<0.005）。初步结果表明，该游戏能够有效区分不同参与者组的表现。这项研究证明了“谷仓废墟”游戏作为评估AD患者空间导航的创新工具的潜力，突出了作为训练工具未来验证和研究的领域。
