VR headset and a treadmill — could this combo curb falls?

Among community-dwelling older people (65 or above), approximately one in three experience at least one fall each year, with most of these being due to trips and slips. In an effort to address this significant public health issue, Dr Yoshiro Okubo — a Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) research fellow — led a study that engaged 56 participants aged 65 years and over and living independently in the community. The study used a VR system and treadmill in order to build ‘obstacle avoidance skills’ that may help older Australians prevent fall risk in real life.

“For this research, we used a virtual reality system and treadmill to train people to avoid obstacles that they may find on a suburban footpath,” Okubo explained. For the study, participants wore an immersive VR head-mounted display and safety harness and walked on a split-belt treadmill in two 8-minute conditions — performed in random order. Participants had to navigate a concrete footpath with slip and trip obstacles, with there also being virtual apples for them to collect along the way.

Importantly for this study, the system was configured so participants could undertake the training with or without physical feedback to obstacle collisions. “The physical feedback was provided by abrupt treadmill belt translations that created momentary balance loss, similar to trips and slips in everyday life,” Okubo said, adding that the study found that this feedback plays a crucial role for older people in learning to avoid an obstacle. Participants also found the VR activity enjoyable and reported that motion sickness was negligible.

Now, researchers at NeuRA’s Falls, Balance and Injury Research Centre plan to trial further environments — such as city streets and bush paths — and use a low-cost VR treadmill system for better clinical feasibility. “We hope this VR obstacle avoidance training will complement existing evidenced-based strength and balance exercises to prevent falls, and associated serious injuries in older people,” Okubo said. “We want to help people build their skills and reduce their risk of falling.” A 2025 paper about the study — ‘Virtual obstacle-avoidance training using daily-life obstacles with physical feedback in older people: a cross-over trial’ — was published in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics.

Image credit: iStock.com/Zorica Nastasic. Stock image used is for illustrative purposes only.