Table 4.
Characteristics of studies in the systematic review (n = 17).
References | Participants (sample size; age range; mean (SD); percentage of men) | Tests | Results related to the effect of multisensory integration | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tasks | Conditions | Instructions | |||
Studies with fall-prone elderly people group (n = 6) | |||||
Allison et al. (2006) | Healthy older adults: 15; n.r.; 79(3); n.r.; fall-prone older adults: 28; n.r.; 83(4); n.r; young adults: 10; 19–28; n.r. (n.r.); n.r | Postural task | Moving visual stimulus projected onto a screen in a moving room. Participants held their fingertip touching a moving touch plate. Touch amplitude (mm): visual amplitude (mm): (A) 8:2, (B) 4:2, (C) 2:2, (D) 2:4, (E) 2:8 | Maintain posture | “Our results did not support the assumption that the multisensory reweighting adaptation process is deficient in healthy and fall-prone older adults, given sufficiently intact peripheral sensation.” |
Jeka et al. (2006) | Healthy older adults: 7; 79–84; 81.1(2.12); n.r; fall-prone older adults: 15; 68–84; 80.7(5.47); n.r; young adults: 12; 18–27; 22.0(3.12); n.r | Postural task | (A) Oscillating at different amplitudes; (B) simultaneously oscillating at a single amplitude and translating to the right at different speeds: 4 mm-4 cm/s, 4 mm-1 cm/s, 4 mm-0 cm/s, 8 mm-0 cm/s. | Maintain posture | The four underlyingmeasures considered together showed a highly significant Condition effect (P < 0.0001), a marginally significant Group effect (P = 0.052), and a marginally significant Group*Condition interaction (P = 0.094). |
Jeka et al. (2010) | Healthy older adullts: 25; 70–93; 76.6(5.6);44%; fall-prone older adults: 17; 72–92; 79.9(7.3); 40%; young adults: 21; 20–30; 23(2.2); 34% | Postural task | The virtual visual scene oscillated sinusoidally 0.4 Hz. The initial amplitude was either 3 or 12 mm. After 60 s the oscillation amplitude switched from 3 to 12 mm or vice versa, and remained at this amplitude for 120 s | Maintain posture | “For fall-prone adults, gains continued to change over the duration of all time segments, demonstrating relatively slow adaptation and implying that the visual reweighting process in fall-prone adults is not fully achieved during the initial change in gain. Healthy older adults showed the fewest long-term changes in gain, suggesting that their initial response was often the most appropriate of the three groups.” |
Setti et al. (2011) | Healthy older adults: 16; n.r.; n.r; 56.3%; fall-prone older adults: 16; n.r.; n.r; 25%; young adults: 16; n.r.; 24.4(4); 43.8% | Sound-induced flash illusion | (A) Visual: 1 or 2 flashes, (B) Auditory 2 beeps, (C) Audiovisual: (1) Congruent: 1 flash/1 beep or 2 flashes/2 beeps, (2) Illusory: Onset of beep precede or follow flash, Different SOA | Report the number of flashes, if no flashes, report the number of beeps | “Importantly, the number of illusions experienced by fall-prone older adults was greater than for healthy older and young adults, and the number of illusions they experienced was unaffected by the onset delay between the auditory beeps from 70 to 270 ms.” |
Zhou et al. (2013) | Healthy older adults: 50; n.r; 79.55(5.73); 48%; fall-prone older adults: 94; n.r; 81.84(4.69); 50% | Balance test | Standing on (A) a firm surface with eyes open, (B) a firm surface with eyes closed, (C) a foam surface with eyes open, (D) a foam surface with eyes closed | Maintain balance | “The two groups of subjects had a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05), except standing on a firm surface with eyes open and closed.” |
Stapleton et al. (2014) | Healthy older adults: 21; n.r; 72.2(4.69); 57.1%; fall-prone older adults: 23; n.r; 73.95(4.94); 52.2% | (A) Postural task, (B) Sound-induced flash illusion | (A) Postural position: (1)sitting, (2) standing; (B) Audiovisual: (1) Congruent: 1 flash/1 beep or 2 flashes/2 beeps, (2) Illusory: 1 flash/2 beeps onset of beep precede or lag flash, Different SOA | (A) Maintain posture; (B) report the number of flashes | “There was greater body sway for fall-prone older adults than healthy older adults in both mediolateral and anterior–posterior directional planes. Also, postural sway increased from the presentation of the audio–visual congruent to the audio–visual illusory conditions for the fall-prone older adults only.” |
Studies without fall-prone elderly people group (n = 11) | |||||
Redfern et al. (2001) | Healthy older adults: 18; 70–85; 74(3.2); 44.4%; young adults: 18; n.r; 22.8(1.8); 55.6% | Postural task | (A) Postural task: (1) seated, (2) fixed floor with a stable visual environment, (3) sway-referenced floor with a fixed visual scene, (4) sway-referenced floor and sway-referenced visual scene; (B) information processing task: (1) none, (2) visual simple reaction time task, (3) an auditory SRT task, (4) an inhibition reaction time task. | (A) Maintain posture, (B) respond as quickly as possible to the stimulus | “However, older subjects' performance of a concurrent information processing task was associated with increased postural sway. This increase in sway in older adults was particularly evident when both the floor and visual scene were sway referenced, which created a high degree of sensory conflict. As postural challenge was increased, RT's increased for both young and older subjects.” |
Rosengren et al. (2007) | Healthy older adults: 20; 60–73; 65.2; 0% | Balance test | (A) Normal vision, fixed support; (B) eyes closed, fixed support; (C) vision swayreferenced, fixed support; (D) normal vision, support sway-referenced; (E) eyes closed, support surface sway-referenced; (F) vision and support surface both sway-referenced. | Maintain balance | “A significant main effect for condition [F (5, 95) = 170, p < 0.001] was obtained. Post-hoc analyses using Tukey HSD procedures revealed that performance on condition 1 was significantly better than that obtained in all of the other conditions. These findings reflect typical of performance on CDP.” |
Redfern et al. (2009) | Healthy older adults: 24; 70–82; 74.2(4.4); 50%; young adults: 24; 21–34; 25.7(3.8); 45.8% | (A) Postural task, (B) Inhibition task | (A) Postural task: (1) Visual conditions: (a) Eyes open in the light, (b) Eyes open in the dark, (c) Sway-referenced visual scene; (2) Platform conditions: (a) Fixed support surface, (b) Sway-referenced floor; (B) Inhibition task: (1) Perceptual task: (a) Congruent side arrow pointed and position arrow, (b) Incongruent; (2) Motor task | (A) Maintain posture, (B) (1) Press a button on the side an arrow pointed; (2) Press the button on the side toward the arrow pointed or on the side opposite the arrow pointed | “In the older adults, perceptual inhibition was positively correlated with sway amplitude on a sway-referenced floor and with a fixed visual scene (r = 0.68, p < 0.001). Motor inhibition was not correlated with sway on either group. Perceptual inhibition may be a component of the sensory integration process important for maintaining balance in older adults.” |
Mahoney et al. (2014) | Healthy older adults: 70; n.r; 75(6.09); 42.9% | (A) RT paradigm, (B) Balance test | (A) Two uni-sensory (visual and somatosensory) and one multisensory (simultaneous VS), (B) with one foot on the ground | (A) respond to all stimuli by pressing a stationary foot pedal, (B) Maintain balance | “A one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences in mean unipedal stance time between MSI classification [NO MSI vs. MSI; F (1, 69) = 9.51, p < 0.01].” |
Palazzo et al. (2015) | Healthy older adults: 40; n.r; 70.18(4.28); 42.5% | Balance test | bipedal stance on three different surfaces, in two different visual conditions for each surface: open and closed eyes. | Maintain balance | “The results of this study showed the importance of multisensory stimulation in postural control and in the maintenance of body balance in the orthostatic position which in turn reduced the accident risk such as falls in the elderly.” |
Ross et al. (2016) | Healthy older adults: 15; n.r; 78.67(7.73); n.r; young adults: 15; n.r; 19.87(2.10); n.r | Postural task | (A) Eyes closed during silence, (B)eyes open during silence, (C)eyes closed during noise, (D)eyes open during noise | Maintain posture | “Standard deviation in the A-P and M-L sway and radial sway was compared across condition and using two-way analyses of variance (eyes closed vs. open and silence vs. noise). We found main effects ofvision [F (1, 28) = 9.36, p = 0.005] and noise [F (1, 28) = 5.93, p = 0.022] on A-P sway, a main effect of noise [F (1, 28) = 8.86, p = 0.006) on M-L sway, and main effects of vision [F (1, 28) = 10.47, p = 0.003]and noise [F (1, 28) = 9.01, p = 0.006] on radial sway.” |
Teramoto et al. (2017) | Healthy older adults: 20; 71–82; 74.6(2.9); n.r; young adults: 11; 20–22; 21.4(0.70); n.r | (A) Sensorimotor function assessment, (B) RT paradigm | (A) Timed Up and Go (TUG) and postural stability tests, (B) tactile only, visual only (Vnear, Vmiddle and Vfar), visuotactile (VTnear, VTmiddle, and VTfar) | (A) maintain posture, (B) speeded responses to all stimuli | “The detailed analysis using the TUG and postural stability test scores in the older adults further demonstrated that the enhanced visuotactile interactions were especially prevalent among the older adults with relatively poor TUG and postural stability per formance.” |
Mahoney et al. (2018) | Healthy older adults: 289; n.r; 76.67(6.37); 47% | (A) RT paradigm, (B) Balance test | (A) Two unisensory (visual and somatosensory) and one multisensory (simultaneous VS), (B) with one foot on the ground | (A) respond to all stimuli by pressing a stationary foot pedal, (B) Maintain balance | “Maximal unipedal stance time was highest for superior and good integrators (16.43 and 16.83 s) and lowest for poor and deficient integrators (13.49 and 12.57 s). Results from the linear regression analyses reveal that vs. integration is associated with maximum unipedal stance time (β = 0.15, p ≤ 0.013).” |
Sparto et al. (2018) | Healthy older adults: 222; n.r; 85(3); 45% | Postural task | (A) Stable surface with eyes open or closed, (B) compliant surface with eyes open or closed on | Maintain posture | “In older adults with an average age of 85 years, the control of lateral sway in both quiet standing and a postural tracking task was found to be related to timed chair standing performance and cognitive processing speed, respectively.” |
Anson et al. (2019) | Healthy older adults: 376; n.r; 60 and over; n.r; 21 aged 50–60; 17 aged 40–50; 13 adults under age 40 | Balance test | (A) Floor with eyes open, (B) floor with eyes closed, (C) foam cushion with eyes open (D) foam cushion with eyes closed | (A) Maintain balance, (B) perceived postural stability | “Overall, sway area increased significantly [F (3, 1690) = 302.9, p < 0.001] across conditions as the balance tasks became progressively more difficult, and all pairwise comparisons were significant (p's < 0.004).” |
Redfern et al. (2019) | Healthy older adults: 34; n.r; 76.0(4.0); 38.2%; young adults: 44; n.r; 23.5(2.9); 27.3% | (A) Postural task, (B) Cognitive testing | (A) Postural task: (1) Visual conditions: (a) fixed visual scene, (b) Eyes closed, (c) Sway-referenced visual scene; (2) Platform conditions: (a) Fixed platform, (b) Sway-referenced platform; (B) Cognitive testing: (1) Perceptual task: (a) Congruent side arrow pointed and position arrow, (b) Incongruent; (2) Motor task | (A) Maintain posture, (B) (1)Press a button on the side an arrow pointed; (2) Press the button on the side toward the arrow pointed or on the side opposite the arrow pointed | “The EQ scores varied across the SOT conditions[F (5, 385) = 375, p < 0.0001]. There were significant correlations for the older subjects between the EQ scores and four cognitive measures within the SOT conditions.” |
n.r., not reported.