- Researchers report that people with early Alzheimer’s disease may have difficulty turning when walking.
- The difficulties didn’t occur with healthy older study participants with mild cognitive impairment, convincing researchers the issue was specific to Alzheimer’s.
- The findings could lead to an easier method for diagnosing early Alzheimer’s that doesn’t rely on blood, spinal fluid, or speech tests.
People who have difficulty walking may be showing an early indicator of Alzheimer’s disease.
That’s according to a new
In their findings, researchers reported that people with early Alzheimer’s have difficulty turning when walking, according to the study using virtual reality led by researchers from University College London.
The scientists from University College London used a virtual reality process and a computational model to explore the intricacies of navigational errors previously observed in people with Alzheimer’s.
Professor Neil Burgess and colleagues in the Space and Memory group at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience grouped participants into three categories: 31 healthy younger participants, 36 healthy older participants, and 43 subjects with mild cognitive impairment.
The group with mild cognitive impairment was divided into three subgroups based on their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker status. Of those, 11 participants tested positive for biomarker evidence of underlying Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers then asked subjects to complete a task while wearing virtual reality goggles.
Participants walked an outbound route guided by numbered cones, consisting of two straight legs connected by a turn. They then had to return to their starting position unguided.
Subjects did the test under three different environmental conditions meant to stress their navigational skills: an unchanged virtual environment, the ground details being replaced by a plain texture, and the temporary removal of all…
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