Impact of using immersive virtual reality over time and steps in the Timed up and Go test in elderly people

Abstract

Today, falls constitute a substantial health problem, especially in the elderly, and the diagnostic tests used by clinicians present often a low sensitivity and specificity. This is the case for the Timed Up and Go test which lacks contextualization with regard to everyday life limiting the relevance of its diagnosis. Virtual reality enables the creation of immersive, reproducible and secure environments, close to situations encountered in daily life, and as such could improve falling risk assessment. This study aims to evaluate the effect of immersive virtual reality by wearing a virtual reality headset with a non-disturbing virtual environment compared to real world on the Timed Up and Go test completion. Thirty-one elders (73.7 ± 9 years old) volunteered to participate in the study and the mean times and number of steps to complete a Timed Up and Go were compared in two conditions: Actual-world clinical and virtual reality conditions. The results showed that the mean completion times and most of the mean number of steps of the Timed Up and Go in virtual reality condition were significantly different to those in clinical condition. These results suggest that there is a virtual reality effect and this effect is significantly correlated to the time taken to complete the Timed Up and Go. This information will be of interest to quantify the potential part of virtual reality effect on the motor control, measured in a virtual task using virtual controlled disturbances.