TY - JOUR
T1 - Narrative review of the multisensory integration tasks used with older adults
T2 - inclusion of multisensory integration tasks into neuropsychological assessment
AU - Pinto, Joana O.
AU - Vieira De Melo, Bruno B.
AU - Dores, Artemisa R.
AU - Peixoto, Bruno
AU - Geraldo, Andreia
AU - Barbosa, Fernando
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Introduction: Age-related changes in sensory functioning impact the activities of daily living and interact with cognitive decline. Given the interactions between sensory and cognitive functioning, combining multisensory integration (MI) assessment with the neuropsychological assessment of older adults seems promising. This review aims to examine the characteristics and utility of MI tasks in functional and cognitive assessment of older adults, with or without neurocognitive impairment. Areas covered: A literature search was conducted following the quality assessment of narrative review criteria. Results focused on tasks of detection, discrimination, sensory illusion, temporal judgment, and sensory conflict. Studies were not consensual regarding the enhancement of MI with age, but most studies showed that older adults had an expanded time window of integration. In older adults with mild cognitive impairment or major neurocognitive disorder it was a mediating role of the magnitude of visual-somatosensory integration between neurocognitive impairment and spatial aspects of gait. Expert opinion: Recently, some concerns have been raised about how to maximize the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment. Since most of our activities of daily living are multisensory and older adults benefit from multisensory information, MI assessment has the potential to improve the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment.
AB - Introduction: Age-related changes in sensory functioning impact the activities of daily living and interact with cognitive decline. Given the interactions between sensory and cognitive functioning, combining multisensory integration (MI) assessment with the neuropsychological assessment of older adults seems promising. This review aims to examine the characteristics and utility of MI tasks in functional and cognitive assessment of older adults, with or without neurocognitive impairment. Areas covered: A literature search was conducted following the quality assessment of narrative review criteria. Results focused on tasks of detection, discrimination, sensory illusion, temporal judgment, and sensory conflict. Studies were not consensual regarding the enhancement of MI with age, but most studies showed that older adults had an expanded time window of integration. In older adults with mild cognitive impairment or major neurocognitive disorder it was a mediating role of the magnitude of visual-somatosensory integration between neurocognitive impairment and spatial aspects of gait. Expert opinion: Recently, some concerns have been raised about how to maximize the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment. Since most of our activities of daily living are multisensory and older adults benefit from multisensory information, MI assessment has the potential to improve the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment.
KW - Aging
KW - multisensory integration
KW - neurocognitive disorder
KW - neuropsychological assessment
KW - older adults
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104760770&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14737175.2021.1914592
DO - 10.1080/14737175.2021.1914592
M3 - Review article
C2 - 33890537
AN - SCOPUS:85104760770
SN - 1473-7175
VL - 21
SP - 657
EP - 674
JO - Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics
JF - Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics
IS - 6
ER -