It is estimated that there are currently fifty million people living with
dementia worldwide. An accurate and early diagnosis of dementia is important
in order to initiate appropriate treatment programs as soon as possible.
Common methods of neuropsychological assessment can be sensitive to
external factors which may compromise accuracy. The aim of this thesis was
to investigate techniques that have the potential for the detection of dementia
that avoid some of the external influences.
The thesis looked at measurements of (i) postural stability (ii) facial
analysis and (iii) fully-immersive virtual reality in cognitively-healthy
individuals. These techniques were chosen as postural stability and facial
analysis change in dementia and whilst virtual reality has previously been used
in dementia research, fully-immersive virtual reality measures have not been
established. To see if the measurements were associated with cognitive
function, participants completed a series of cognitive tests.
Results indicate that all techniques explored shared a relationship with
memory performance, with lower anteroposterior postural sway (F(1,22) =
17.76, p < 0.01), number of activities participated in that involve a posture
element (F(2, 39) = 3.77, p < .05; Wilk's Λ = 0.84, partial η2 = 0.16), the greater
the frequency of negative facial expressions (F(2, 18) = 4.49, p < .05; Wilk's Λ
= 0.67, partial η2 = 0.33.), and low blink rate (t(11.02) = 2.62 p < .05) all
showing better scores on memory tests. Moreover, better scores on the fullyimmersive
virtual reality task predicted better scores on with short-term
memory (F(1,22) = 20.20 p < 0.01), LTM (F(1,22) = 09.10 p < .01), associative
learning (F(1,22) = 08.75 p < .01), and a dual–task test
(F(1,22) = 04.64 p < .05).
The novel findings that elements such as postural stability, participation
in sports, facial expressions of emotion, blink rates, and spatial memory as
assessed in fully-immersive virtual reality highlight that non-invasive
techniques can provide measurements that correspond to cognitive ability.
This may hold implications for dementia diagnoses. Future research should
assess whether these relationships can also be found in an older adult
population. If this relationship is found in older adults, it could justify further
research into how these techniques could be applied in a clinical context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19764 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Blount, Joseph A. |
| Contributors | Ugail, Hassan, Lesk, Valerie E. |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, Faculty of Engineering and Informatics |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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