249Rehabilitating Perceptual Deficits in Fall-prone Older Adults: Improved Multisensory Processing Following 3 Day Perceptual Training

Abstract

Background: Falling older adults represents a major public health concern, with falls posing health, economic and societal issues and resulting in crippling healthcare costs for the national health service. Success in preventing and rehabilitating falls is tempered by the incomplete understanding of aetiology. Multisensory perception, the combination of sensory information underlying balance control, is impaired in fall-prone older adults and is emerging as an indicator of falls-risk. Training multisensory perception represents a novel rehabilitation avenue to reduce falls-risk amongst older fallers. Methods: Community-dwelling older adults (aged 65+) were recruited to participate in an experimental training programme. Both fall-prone (n = 7) and healthy older adults (n = 10) were recruited, with fallers classified as those who experienced a fall in the previous year. Participants were required to complete 40 minute perceptual training sessions on 3 consecutive days. Measures of multisensory processing efficiency were taken immediately pre-and post-training. General cognitive status, self-reported health and regular physical activity levels were controlled for across groups. All participants were cognitively healthy. Results: 3 days of computer-based perceptual training improved the fallers' multisensory processing efficiency as indexed by improved performance on a multisensory illusion. Specifically, benefits in integrating and discriminating temporally asynchronous visual and auditory stimuli was improved post-training, reflecting more accurate perceptions of their surrounding environment. Conclusions: This study provides promising evidence that multisensory processing deficits in older fallers can be modified through perceptual training. With only 3 days of training required to register such benefits, perceptual training offers a viable and cost-effective rehabilitation option for older adults at risk of falling. Further research is needed to show the impact on balance and falls.