Virtual reality immersive environments for motor and cognitive training of elderly people - a scoping review

Abstract

The contemporary development of immersive virtual reality interfaces holds untapped potential for the rehabilitation and motor-cognitive training of older adults. Despite the parallel development of gamification methods involving users in interactive experiences and the dynamic development of sensors and techniques for tracking human bio-physiological activities, the cognitive and motor experiments for the elderly, proposed in the literature, are relatively schematic, have limited modalities, and fail to exploit the capabilities of contemporary VR infrastructure. Moreover, the proposed state-of-the-art solutions are arbitrary and their authors usually do not go beyond a simple compilation of popular computer games supported with alternative displays. There is a shortage of exploration of new scenarios combining contemporary immersive virtual environments and the results of experiments on cognitive and motor stimulation of elderly people in an acceptable way for seniors. This paper provides a critical analysis of the contemporary state-of-the-art, followed by constructive insights into the potential of technology and provides inspiration and proposals for solutions that represent a new quality in cognitive-motor rehabilitation.