No Overt Effects of a 6-Week Exergame Training on Sensorimotor and Cognitive Function in Older Adults. A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract

Several studies investigating the relationship between physical activity and cognition showed that exercise interventions might have beneficial effects on working memory, executive functions as well as motor fitness in old adults. Recently, movement based video games (exergames) have been introduced to have the capability to improve cognitive function in older adults. Healthy aging is associated with a loss of cognitive, as well as sensorimotor functions. During exergaming, participants are required to perform physical activities while being simultaneously surrounded by a cognitively challenging environment. However, only little is known about the impact of exergame training interventions on a broad range of motor, sensory, and cognitive skills. Therefore, the present study aims at investigating the effects of an exergame training over 6 weeks on cognitive, motor, and sensory functions in healthy old participants. For this purpose, 30 neurologically healthy older adults were randomly assigned to either an experimental (ETG, n = 15, 1 h training, twice a week) or a control group (NTG, n = 15, no training). Several cognitive tests were performed before and after exergaming in order to capture potential training-induced effects on processing speed as well as on executive functions. To measure the impact of exergaming on sensorimotor performance, a test battery consisting of pinch and grip force of the hand, tactile acuity, eye-hand coordination, flexibility, reaction time, coordination, and static balance were additionally performed. While we observed significant improvements in the trained exergame (mainly in tasks that required a high load of coordinative abilities), these gains did not result in differential performance improvements when comparing ETG and NTG. The only exergaming-induced difference was a superior behavioral gain in fine motor skills of the left hand in ETG compared to NTG. In an exploratory analysis, within-group comparison revealed improvements in sensorimotor and cognitive tasks (ETG) while NTG only showed an improvement in a static balance test. Taken together, the present study indicates that even though exergames might improve gaming performance, our behavioral assessment was probably not sensitive enough to capture exergaming-induced improvements. Hence, we suggest to use more tailored outcome measures in future studies to assess potential exergaming-induced changes.

Effects of Exergaming on Balance of Healthy Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

“…The included studies reported 22 dropout cases in which 12 cases were because of participants' health issues (i.e., medication or illness), which made them either ineligible to the study or unable to attend the intervention program. 55,[57][58][59][60][61] Other dropout reasons include schedule conflicts (N = 4), travel distance (N = 3), and loss of interest (N = 3). 21,28,56,58 Given that participants of the included studies are above age of 60, health issue could be a major dropout reason during the intervention.…”

“…The Mini-Mental Status Exam is the common instrument for mental health and cognitive assessment, with a score of 24 as the cutoff point for eligibility with respect to the cognitive function. 28,[57][58][59]61,63,64 Although older adults may experience considerable deficits in motor function, participants satisfying the eligible criteria must be able to stand and walk without aid. 28,58,[63][64][65][66] Sensory function is another major criterion, which requires no or minimal impairment in vision, FIG.…”

“Walking” through the sensory, cognitive, and temporal degradations of healthy aging

“…Current research efforts to counteract and/or postpone the negative effects of normal aging have been primarily focusing on physical and cognitive training protocols to prevent falls and enhance cognitive processes, thus partly ignoring the benefits associated with multisensory processing in healthy aging. Yet, the research reviewed in the previous section suggests that the aging brain tends to rely increasingly on multisensory integration by using information from several modalities so as to enhance cognition and perception, as well as to improve gait .…”

“…The continuously increasing percentage of the aging population creates the need to better understand the normal aging process. Current research efforts to ameliorate the negative effects of normal aging have been focusing on research to prevent falls, enhance particular cognitive processes, or even provide the elderly with assistive companions . To date, however, no systematic effort has been made to explore the benefits of multisensory integration for successful aging.…”

A Piezoresistive Array Armband With Reduced Number of Sensors for Hand Gesture Recognition

“…Moreover, the possibility to monitor the contractions of specific muscles would provide additional clinical information about patients' progress. Thus, the exergaming could be used in clinical practice to make neuromotor rehabilitation processes more stimulating and enjoyable (Ordnung et al, 2017).…”