Ageing is accompanied with a richer knowledge reserve based on a multitude of life experiences. These gains are coupled with degradations in sensory, temporal, and cognitive processing due to alterations in the functioning of the central nervous and other physiological systems. These degradations negatively affect daily functioning and independence, which, in turn, lead to a general decline in physical/mental well-being with increasing rates of accidents and social exclusion. Efforts to ameliorate the negative effects of normal ageing have focused on fall prevention, cognitive enhancement or assistive companions. To-date, however, no effort has been made to exploit the benefits of multisensory integration for successful ageing. This is an important gap given that our environment contains various sensory information, which the brain integrates allowing us to operate in a goal-directed fashion. Even before birth, humans are equipped with functional sensory organs that allow inputs, which are then integrated to create a multisensory experience that allows for faster and more accurate event detection/reaction, flexible deployment of attention, better information encoding/retrieval, and faster information acquisition.

• SenseWalk will investigate the benefits of multisensory integration so as to enhance cognitive and temporal processing, and adaptation to one’s environment and, thus, contribute in the achievement of successful ageing.
• SenseWalk will be accomplished by monitoring healthy-but ageing-individuals, while walking in real and virtual environments. Monitoring will allow the definition of a baseline performance, will include measurements of gait parameters, cognitive, sensory, multisensory, and temporal processing, and will be personalized and, thus, deviations from baseline and/or healthy thresholds will be detected and addressed with specific regimes. These will include multisensory processing training to ameliorate cognitive impairments and, thereby, promote a healthier inclusion to daily life.
• SenseWalk’s long-term goal is to provide an early detection/intervention methodology for future ageing-related problems through an elder-friendly monitoring/intervention plan for enhanced daily-living skills.