Narrative review of the multisensory integration tasks used with older adults: inclusion of multisensory integration tasks into neuropsychological assessment

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Age-related changes in sensory functioning impact the activities of daily living and interact with cognitive decline. Given the interactions between sensory and cognitive functioning, combining multisensory integration (MI) assessment with the neuropsychological assessment of older adults seems promising. This review aims to examine the characteristics and utility of MI tasks in functional and cognitive assessment of older adults, with or without neurocognitive impairment.

Areas covered: A literature search was conducted following the quality assessment of narrative review criteria. Results focused on tasks of detection, discrimination, sensory illusion, temporal judgment, and sensory conflict. Studies were not consensual regarding the enhancement of MI with age, but most studies showed that older adults had an expanded time window of integration. In older adults with mild cognitive impairment or major neurocognitive disorder it was a mediating role of the magnitude of visual-somatosensory integration between neurocognitive impairment and spatial aspects of gait.

Expert opinion: Recently, some concerns have been raised about how to maximize the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment. Since most of our activities of daily living are multisensory and older adults benefit from multisensory information, MI assessment has the potential to improve the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• multisensory integration
• neuropsychological assessment
• neurocognitive disorder
• older adults

Article highlights

• Previous studies reported age-related sensory changes affecting the activities of daily living.

• Sensory decline in older adults appear to be compensated by multisensory information, but studies are not consensual regarding the enhancement of MI with age.

• MI tasks are useful in the assessment of age-related changes in perception and could be included into neuropsychological assessment protocols.

• Neurosensory impairment related to Covid-19 highlights the importance of including taste and smell in the study of MI.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

A Geraldo has a doctoral grant attributed by the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology] with the reference SFRH/BD/138723/2018.