Influence of a Three-Month Mixed Reality Training on Gait Speed and Cognitive Functions in Adults with Intellectual Disability: A Pilot Study

Abstract

People with intellectual disability (ID) are often subject to motor impairments such as altered gait. As gait is a task involving motor and perceptive dimensions, perceptual-motor training is an efficient rehabilitation approach to reduce the risk of falls which grows with age. Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality are recent tools which enable interaction with 3D elements at different levels of immersion and interaction. In view of the countless possibilities that this opens, their use for therapeutic purposes is constantly increasing. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence a mixed reality activity could have on motor and cognitive abilities in eighteen adults with intellectual disability. For three months, once a week, they had around 20 min to pop virtual balloons with a finger using a Microsoft HoloLens2^® head-mounted mixed-reality device. Motor skills were assessed through gait analysis and cognitive abilities were measured with the Montréal Cognitive Assessment. Both walking speed and cognitive score increased after training. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that mixed reality holds potential to get used for therapeutic purposes in adults with ID.

Keywords: cognitive assessment; gait; intellectual disability; mixed reality; perceptual-motor task; virtual reality.

Figure 1

Extended reality technologies: VR; MR; AR (https://actimage.com (accessed on 9 February 2023, free of use)).

Figure 2

Study design.

Figure 3

At the top: a subject playing the mixed reality game PopBalloons (Actimage, France) using the HoloLens2^® headset (Microsoft, USA). At the bottom: what a subject sees in the glasses at the same time—a virtual balloon in the real physical environment, which they are about to pierce with their finger. The balloon is a real-size 3D model appearing in the game area with a random position. In the picture, the balloon is approximately 1.5 m from the subject.