This pilot study employed a non-randomized control trial design to explore the impact of physical activity within a virtual reality (VR) environment on multisensory processing among community-dwelling older adults.
The investigation compared both chronic (over 6 weeks) and acute effects of VR-based physical activity to a reading control group. The evaluation metrics for multisensory processing included audiovisual response time (RT), simultaneity judgments (SJ), sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI), and temporal order judgments (TOJ). A total of 13 older adults were provided with VR headsets featuring custom-designed games, while another 14 older adults were assigned to a reading-based control group.
Results indicated that acute engagement in physical activity led to higher accuracy in the SIFI task (experimental group: 85.6%; control group: 78.2%;
The findings suggest that immersive VR has potential utility for enhancing multisensory processing in older adults. However, future studies must rigorously control for participant variables like age and sex to ensure more accurate comparisons between experimental and control conditions.