The proposed research aims to study the ability of VRWMT to discriminate between older adults with known mild NCD, healthy age-matched older adults and participants with non-communicable diseases and to predict their deterioration in cognitive function over a period of 12 months. Moreover, this study is to characterize and evaluate any concurrent validity between emergence of deterioration in the VRWMT and clinical tools of functional performance in older adults. Additionally, the potential of inflammatory and metabolic dysregulation biomarkers to increase our ability to detect early NCD risk over and above the predictive validity of the VRWMT. The study findings will bring both social and clinical significance to ageing and NCD research. The combination of behavioural and biomarkers of pathological significance offers an innovative approach that potentially addresses the limitations intrinsic to either measure alone.
We propose to validate an interactive, immersive spatial memory test from the laboratory test. This VR-based working memory test (VRWMT) is a first-person, self-pacing game embedded within a virtual reality environment, the program is easily implemented with minimal instructions and no supervision that can be community-users friendly. It is specifically designed to assess rapid spatial working memory - a common deficit in all NCD subtypes. Its ability to detect pathological models of dementia, age-related deterioration, and hippocampal dysfunction are well established in literature