Aging affects the mental simulation/planning of the “rising from the floor” sequence

We investigated the effect of aging on the ability to mentally simulate/plan a complex sequential action of the whole body, namely “rising from the floor”. Forty-four non-demented elderly people (mean age: 85.2 ± 5.5 years) and 20 young people (mean age: 26.6 ± 4.9 years) were included in the study. They were required to put in order six images representing the main movements necessary to get up from a sitting position on the floor. We showed that older subjects had poorer performance—both in terms of proportion of success and response time—than their younger counterparts. These results are in line with previous findings showing age-related alterations in action simulation/action planning processes, and highlight the fact that elderly people have particular difficulties when the action to mentally simulate is complex.