During everyday walking, secondary tasks such as looking at a phone or reading billboards on the streets often require deliberate head reorientation and attentional allocation. However, the effect of these concurrent head-orientation demands on gait regulation and secondary task performance has not been systematically quantified....
No actionable change — findings are preliminary and aimed at vestibular rehabilitation research design rather than direct clinical application.
Understanding how task-driven head movements interact with gait in VR environments could inform the design of more ecologically valid vestibular rehabilitation protocols.
- 01Examines how goal-directed head turns during VR walking affect gait stability and balance.
- 02Published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, signaling engineering/rehab crossover relevance.
- 03Findings have implications for virtual reality-based vestibular and balance rehabilitation research.
- 04Adds ecological validity to VR balance assessments by incorporating natural head-reorientation behaviors.
- 05May help distinguish normal adaptive head-movement strategies from vestibular dysfunction patterns.
Task-driven head reorientations during VR walking affect gait and balance outcomes.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42378147
- DOI
- 10.1109/TNSRE.2026.3708538.
- Journal
- IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 4
- Population
- Participants walking in a virtual reality environment performing task-driven head reorientation tasks
- Intervention
- Task-driven head reorientations during treadmill/VR walking
Primary outcomes
Gait parameters during VR walking; Balance measures during VR walking with head reorientations