Going for a Walk: An Empirical Study of Route Learning Training and Its Effects on Mental and Physical Fitness in Patients with Korsakoff Syndrome

Korsakoff syndrome (KS) is a chronic neuropsychiatric disorder caused by severe thiamine deficiency. The syndrome is characterized by deficits in explicit memory and executive functions. These impairments severely limit patients with KS in their daily activities like visiting new and familiar places. The aim of the present study was to examine whether patients with KS are still able to learn a route, despite their cognitive impairments. We compared three route learning methods across three groups of patients with KS: passively following the experimenter (PL), trial-and-error learning (TEL), and errorless learning (EL). In the EL group, the participants had to walk towards a landmark that was shown on a tablet by the experimenter, and upon arrival, they had to find and walk towards the next landmark shown by the experimenter. Over 12 training sessions all participants showed improved route retracing performance. There was no difference between the three groups. Moreover, the results indicated positive effects of the walking training on quality of life, physical fitness, and attentional functioning. These promising findings imply that walking training may be beneficial for various aspects of amnestic patients’ daily functioning. It is therefore recommended to integrate route training into standard care for patients with KS.