Performance in complex life situations: effects of age, cognition, and walking speed in virtual versus real life environments.
Michal Kafri, Patrice L Weiss, Gabriel Zeilig and 3 others
PMID 33557894WHAT IT FOUND
Virtual reality shopping tasks did not replicate real-world walking patterns, showing slower speeds and different gait variability.
However, they accurately captured age-related differences in cognitive performance and task efficiency, suggesting VR is better suited for assessing thinking strategies than gait mechanics.
Key findings
01Participants walked significantly slower, with shorter steps and higher gait variability in the virtual environment compared to the real mall.
02Older adults performed worse than younger adults on cognitive task scores and took longer to complete tasks in both real and virtual environments.
03Navigation efficiency scores were higher in the virtual environment for both groups, indicating that the visual setup aided task planning.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Small sample size (n=34) of healthy, high-functioning adults, limiting generalizability to clinical populations with impairments. The virtual environment lacked realistic sensory details such as crowd noise, lighting variations, and social interactions. Treadmill adaptation time (5-10 minutes) may not have been sufficient to eliminate all biomechanical differences between virtual and real walking. Some participants' data were lost due to technical issues, reducing the effective sample for certain analyses.
Declared interests
Funded by various Israeli foundations and government ministries; no commercial conflicts declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that gait performance in a virtual reality treadmill environment reflects real-world walking ability. The study found significant differences in speed, stride length, and variability between the two settings, meaning VR may not be valid for motor-only assessments.