Age-related decrease in functional mobility score when performing a locomotor task in an immersive environment

In recent years, immersive virtual reality technology has emerged in the field of health. Its use could allow the assessment of the motor behavior of individuals in adaptable and reproducible immersive environments, simulating real situations. This study aimed to assess the effect of an immersive scenario on functional mobility during a simple locomotor task according to age. Sixty young adults and 60 older volunteers, who were autonomous and without cognitive and neurological impairment participated. A locomotor task based on the “Timed Up and Go” task was performed in real and virtual conditions. A functional mobility score was calculated by combining the time and the number of steps used and compared between young and older people. Results showed that correlations between time and the number of steps were the same in VR and real conditions, but the locomotor performance decreased significantly in VR for both populations. Additionally, older people exhibited a more reduced locomotor performance in a virtual environment than young adults, thereby their functional mobility score decreased more to complete the task, reflecting the adoption of a more secure locomotion strategy often related to the fear of falling, with an increase in time and number of steps to support balance. The major difference between reality and VR is the visual immersion with an HMD, and visual information is more important in the sensory integration of older people. Therefore, the reduction in visual field and lack of visual exproprioceptive information about the body segments in the virtual environment could explain these results. Finally, the effect of immersion in a virtual scenario on mobility exists for both populations but is accentuated by the aging process and is therefore age dependent.