Training Multisensory Processing in Older Adults

描述(由申请人提供)：已有研究表明，随着人类年龄的增长，所有感觉系统的功能都会减弱。有趣的是，许多可能影响生活质量的与衰老相关的残疾，如跌倒增加、沟通障碍和记忆障碍，可能会受到来自多个感觉模式的信息整合的变化的影响。事实上，在老年人中，从无人看管或背景刺激中分心的情况在各种感觉模式中持续增加。对背景刺激的增强反应被认为与随着年龄增长而发生的感觉注意力的变化有关。尽管老年受试者更容易在感觉模式内或跨感觉模式分心，但当多感觉刺激携带多余信息时，他们实际上表现出更大的行为表现增强。因此，如果老年受试者能够限制与无关感觉线索相关的分心，但保留与多余的多感觉线索相关的好处，许多与年龄相关的感觉缺陷可能会得到改善。一种降低老年受试者在感觉模式内和跨感觉模式分心敏感性的干预措施可能会改善多感觉整合，并可能通过改善沟通和记忆等过程对生活质量产生巨大影响，此外还可以限制跌倒的敏感性。本文提出的研究将通过评估老年受试者在参加注意力训练计划前后的多感觉处理来填补这一知识空白。我们的主要假设是，注意力训练减少了与不一致的感觉刺激相关的分心，同时保留了与一致的多感觉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，旨在评估多感官训练计划的临床效果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。

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.