Assessing the impact of age on everyday cognitive function with a virtual environment task: The EcoKitchen

Abstract

More realistic assessment tools are imperative for a better understanding of the impact of age-related cognitive deficits on functional status. With this in mind, we probed the ability of the EcoKitchen, a non-immersive virtual environment task with increasing executively demanding kitchen chores, to detect the effects of aging on the simulated everyday functioning of healthy adults. Fifty-three adults (age between 23 and 77 years) were assessed with the EcoKitchen and a set of conventional paper-and-pencil neuropsychological tests. The associations between the baseline features of study participants and each of the two different assessment methods were examined. The associations between the EcoKitchen variables and an executive composite score were also explored. Our results showed that older individuals present deficits in the performance of both the EcoKitchen task and standard assessment methods. Notably, we found that, unlike conventional tests, accuracy in the EcoKitchen task was not related to the education level and IQ score of participants. Moreover, the EcoKitchen performance time was significantly correlated with executive tests. We have demonstrated that the EcoKitchen task, an ecologically relevant computerized neuropsychological assessment tool, might be more suitable than classic paper-and-pencil tests to capture the impact of aging on everyday cognitive function, as it proved to be less prone to the influence of confounding factors. Additionally, we have shown that executive function plays an important role in the timely performance of cognitively challenging virtual environment tasks.

Keywords:

• Aging
• ecological validity
• executive functions
• virtual environment

Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge Alexandre Malhão, Fábio Pedrosa, Hélio Gonçalves and Marco Simões for developing the EcoKitchen Task. We would like to acknowledge all the persons that kindly agreed to participate in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, under PhD Grant Number SFRH/BD/85358/2012 and Grant Number UID/NEU/04539/2013; Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, under Grant Number PSCNC; FEDER – European Regional Development Fund, under Grant Number PTDC/SAU-ENB/112306/20 and Grant Number P OCI-01-0145-FEDER-007440.