Training Multisensory Processing in Older Adults

训练老年人的多感官处理

• 批准号: 7090453
• 负责人: Paul Laurienti
• 金额: $ 18.3万
• 依托单位: WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-15 至 2008-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7090453
• 关键词: attention; clinical research; cues; human old age (65+); human subject; neural information processing; psychophysiology; sensory feedback; training

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): It has been shown that as humans age all sensory systems exhibit diminished function. Interestingly, many of the disabilities associated with aging that may impact the quality of life, such as increased falls, communication disturbances, and memory impairment, may be impacted by changes in the integration of information from multiple sensory modalities. In fact, distractions from unattended or background stimuli in across sensory modalities are consistently increased in aged individuals. The enhanced response to background stimulation is thought to be related to changes in sensory attention that occur with age. Although more susceptible to distractions within or across sensory modalities, elderly subjects actually show greater behavioral performance enhancements when multisensory stimuli carry redundant information. Thus, many age-related sensory deficits could be ameliorated if elderly subjects were able to limit distractions associated with irrelevant sensory cues but retain the benefits associated with redundant multisensory cues. An intervention that reduces elderly subjects' susceptibility to distractions within and across sensory modalities may improve multisensory integration and could have a great impact on quality of life by improving processes such as communication and memory in addition to limiting susceptibility to falls. The studies proposed here will fill this knowledge gap by evaluating multisensory processing in elderly subjects before and after participation in an attention training program. Our primary hypothesis is that attention training lessens distractions associated with incongruent sensory stimuli while retaining behavioral improvements associated with congruent multisensory stimuli. A significant advantage of utilizing behavioral interventions over pharmacologic interventions is that the risk for adverse side-effects is very low. Thus, studies directed at evaluating the clinical efficacy of multisensory training programs could have considerable impact on health care and the quality of life in the elderly.

描述（由申请人提供）：已经表明，随着人类年龄的增长，所有感觉系统都表现出功能减弱。有趣的是，许多与衰老相关的可能影响生活质量的残疾，如增加的福尔斯，沟通障碍和记忆障碍，可能会受到多种感觉方式信息整合变化的影响。事实上，在老年人中，各种感觉方式中无人看管或背景刺激的干扰不断增加。对背景刺激的增强反应被认为与随着年龄的增长而发生的感官注意力的变化有关。虽然更容易受到内或跨感官形式的干扰，老年受试者实际上表现出更大的行为表现增强时，多感官刺激进行冗余信息。因此，许多与年龄相关的感觉缺陷可以得到改善，如果老年人能够限制分心与无关的感觉线索，但保留与冗余的多感官线索的好处。干预，减少老年受试者的易受干扰内和跨感官形式可能会改善多感觉整合，并可能有很大的影响，生活质量的改善过程，如沟通和记忆，除了限制易感性福尔斯。这里提出的研究将填补这一知识空白，通过评估多感官处理老年受试者之前和之后参与的注意力训练计划。我们的主要假设是，注意力训练减少了与不一致的感官刺激相关的分心，同时保留了与一致的多感官刺激相关的行为改善。与药物干预相比，使用行为干预的一个显著优势是不良副作用的风险非常低。因此，旨在评估多感觉训练计划的临床疗效的研究可能会对老年人的医疗保健和生活质量产生相当大的影响。