New questionnaire tracks perceived navigation in 940 healthy older adults

For someone with early cognitive decline, the trip home from a supermarket can become a problem—not because the road has changed, but because familiar directions no longer feel reliable. At Flinders University, researchers led by Dr. Monique Boord and Dr. Stephanie Wong have tested a questionnaire designed to make those navigation changes easier to detect.

The Spatial Navigation and Memory Questionnaire, known as SPAM, was assessed in 940 older adults. It asks people to report their perceived navigation and memory abilities across their lifetime and during the past three months. The study found that the questionnaire captured two distinct but related areas: spatial navigation and memory.

That focus matters because difficulty finding directions or subtle disorientation may emerge in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, sometimes before noticeable memory loss and later, more significant navigation problems. Spatial navigation is not routinely assessed in clinical settings, the researchers say, even though patients may notice these changes themselves.

SPAM is meant to provide a more structured set of questions than an informal conversation. That could give clinicians a practical way to identify patterns earlier, while giving families information that may help them think about a loved one’s safety. The study supports the questionnaire as a measure of cognitive aging, but the authors say it must also be validated in people with a dementia diagnosis.

So what changes in practice? Not a diagnosis today. The immediate result is a tested research instrument for healthy older adults that could make navigation and memory easier to discuss during cognitive assessment. Its usefulness in dementia care remains a question for the next validation studies.