- Impairments in spatial navigation might be an early warning sign for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study.
- Researchers said men showed more spatial navigation impairment than women.
- They noted that spatial impairment might develop years or decades before symptoms of Alzheimer’s appear.
A virtual reality test looking at spatial navigation in midlife adults might provide an early screening tool for Alzheimer’s disease.
That’s according to a
Researchers at the University College of London used a virtual reality set to test spatial navigation in 100 adults between the ages of 40 and 59, about 25 years younger than their estimated age of dementia onset.
None of the participants showed symptoms of Alzheimer’s. However, they did have a hereditary or physiological risk of the disease, including a family history of the condition or lifestyle risk factors such as low physical activity levels.
Participants were from the PREVENT-Dementia cohort study.
“Spatial difficulties are very common in those with Alzheimer’s, both men and women,” said Dr. Douglas Scharre, a professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry as well as the director of the Division of Cognitive Neurology at the Center for Cognitive and Memory Disorders with the The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
“This task involves the use of many parts of the brain and so just to classify it as spatial difficulties is an oversimplification,” Scharre, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Medical News Today. “You have to estimate how far and in what direction you need to go. Also, problem-solving skills and judgments are required to be accurate.”
The researchers reported that the people at the most significant risk of developing Alzheimer’s, regardless of risk factors, were selectively impaired on the virtual reality navigation task without a corresponding impairment on other cognitive…
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