Tech Talk: George Mason University professor uses virtual reality to help older adults’ balance

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (DC News Now) — Stepping into the world of virtual reality to reduce the risk of older adults falling— that’s what one George Mason University researcher is working on with the help of students at the university.

“It gives us a way of manipulating and using technology that can challenge the brain while they’re moving at the same time,” said Dr Tiphanie Raffegeau, a GMU assistant professor of kinesiology at the GMU College Of Education and Human Development.

That challenge happens in a virtual space on the university’s campus. The research uses virtual reality to test the brain’s process, ultimately to help keep older adults from falling.

“One in four older adults are going to fall every year, and that’s not just a fall, that’s actually seeking emergency care for an injury related to a fall,” said Raffegeau. “And if you happen to know somebody that’s fallen and you ask them what they were doing when they fell, a lot of times you’ll notice and they’ll notice they were distracted.”

The immersive research experience involves measuring the fear of falling and helping people take on the fear head-on.

“We noticed over time that how people feel about the level of danger that they’re in changes how they divide their attention. So, there’s something called the fear of falling, and a lot of older adults experience it,” Raffegeau noted. “In my lab, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to induce a fear of falling to try and challenge people, kind of make them afraid while they’re walking, so they build this resilience.”

Students help with the research, but DC News Now’s Tosin Fakile asked if older adults have been a part of the study.

“We have tried it in older adults, and fortunately older adults do respond.. even what we’re doing now in the lab is seeing how people respond across time,” said Raffegeau. “Just like their young adult counterparts, they are getting inoculated to that stress, they’re getting accustomed to it. They’re building the cognitive and motor processes that we want them to be able to use in the real world.”

As the research continues, Raffegeau and her team are aiming to discover if the virtual technology actually reduces the older population’s real-world risk of falling; however, they have determined that it does change people’s walking patterns in a way that shows they are “feeling more confident” and have better balance.

As for the future, Raffegeau hopes the work expands beyond the university’s campus.

“We are still in the research. You know, we really want to do evidence-based practice, right, and put out evidence that can be implemented in clinics in the future,” Raffegeau said.

“We want to make sure people can maintain their mobility, and I see this VR technology as a way of improving that for the long term for people of all ages,” she added.