Tolerance of an Immersive Virtual Reality Task Evaluating the Spatial Memory of Elderly Subjects

Spatial navigation is a high-level cognitive function allowing animals and humans to orient and move in space by constructing a mental representation of the environment. This function has been identified as one of the very first to be affected by Alzheimer's disease, including at the early stages, before the appearance of other mnesic disorders that the latter causes, such as those of episodic memory. However, the neuropsychological tests currently used in the diagnosis of cognitive disorders do not allow effective assessment of spatial memory impairment, in particular because it is impractical to offer spatial orientation tasks in a consulting room. In this context, virtual reality offers very interesting perspectives: it makes it possible to create controlled environments to assess spatial memory, without leaving the place of consultation. Before being able to test its possible diagnostic efficacy, it is imperative to test the feasibility as well as the reliability of this type of task on an elderly population with no cognitive impairment. The data currently available on immersion tolerance in virtual reality mainly concern young people aged 18 to 35 and little data is available concerning the elderly or very old. If this task correctly assesses spatial navigation abilities, this study should find the effects of age and sex usually observed. The aim of this study is to assess the tolerance of an immersive virtual reality task evaluating the spatial memory of elderly subjects and the effects of age, gender and level of education on performance.