Abstract
A decline in the Spatial Navigation (SN) abilities has been observed in the course of healthy aging. Walking is an inseparable part of the navigation process; however, research tasks overlook this aspect in studies involving seniors. The present study was designed to overcome this limitation by recording gait parameters during natural environment navigation and to determine gait indicators that most accurately assign the participants to the proper age category. Thirteen elderly (mean age = 69.1 ± 5.4 year) and sixteen young women (mean age = 21.5 ± 2.2 year) equipped with gait sensors were asked to learn a path while walking in a real building (Learning Phase), reproduce the path (Memory Phase) and reach targets after a 30 min delay (Delayed Phase). The Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis showed that our self-developed Gait Style Change indicator, that is, the difference in the probability of feet landing between particular SN task phases, classified the participants into either the elderly or the young group with the highest accuracy (0.91). The second most important indicator, the Task-Related (step counts in each SN task phase), achieved the accuracy discrimination of 0.83. The gait indicators, comprising single gait parameters measured while navigating, might be considered as accurately differentiating older from younger people.
Highlights
Spatial Navigation (SN) is defined as a complex ability to find the right way in the environment, plan how to reach a particular destination, and return to the starting point [1,2].SN recruits a wide range of cognitive functions [2,3,4,5] and involves much of the brain, mainly the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, prefrontal, and parietal cortices
The present work has showed the preliminary results of testing the accuracy of a multistaged real-world spatial navigation task with simultaneous acquisition of gait parameters
The applied classification analysis revealed that two gait indicators, that is, the Task-Related one encompassing step count and the Gait
Summary
Spatial Navigation (SN) is defined as a complex ability to find the right way in the environment, plan how to reach a particular destination, and return to the starting point [1,2].SN recruits a wide range of cognitive functions [2,3,4,5] and involves much of the brain, mainly the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, prefrontal, and parietal cortices (seeReference [6] for a review). SN has been typically evaluated using the multi-staged computer and virtual reality tasks [10,11] or the real (natural) environment [12,13]. The virtual reality technology allows studying SN in well-controlled conditions [14], but it deprives participants of the possibility to naturally explore the surrounding through walking which might reduce the ecological validity of these methods [15,16]. When we take into account that SN is based on two kinds of information: visual and that delivered from the vestibular signals and motor efference copies [17], deprivation of the possibility to move in space while navigating, might result in committing more errors compared to the condition where visual cues are available and exploration by walking is possible [18]
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