Assessing spatial navigation in seniors and clinical settings: Stepwise progression from real-world to VR

Deficits in spatial navigation are difficult to assess in older adults and neurological patients since available clinical tests lack ecological and construct validity. Experimental paradigms, on the other hand, are often too complex to administer in a cognitively impaired population or require lengthy instructions, hindering the application in daily clinical practice. We introduce different developmental stages of a passive navigation paradigm, inspired by everyday difficulties of patients, from real-world stimuli to an optimized VR adaptation. The respective data in healthy seniors shows desirable psychometric properties and associations with cognitive measurements, e.g. working memory and mental rotation, support the construct validity of the assessment. Future studies will address the feasibility of this paradigm in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).