Navigation ability test: a new specific test to asses spatial orientation ability in football players and healthy.

BACKGROUND: This paper describes a new specific test to asses spatial and orientation abilities: Navigation Ability Test (NAT). The goal of this study was to determine if football players and normal subjects use vestibular information to keep track of their positions while walking through the Navigation Ability Test. METHODS: This study was conducted total of 120 patients, underwent to Navigation Ability Test (NAT): 60 football players and 60 of normal subjects recruited on the basis of no history of vertigo/balance disorders and a negative otoneurological instrumental examination and the second group of the football players and were recruited from Division B, Division Under-21 and Women's League. Patients were enrolled in the study of the met all the following inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Our results showed differences between sexes during navigation tasks are not related to spatial learning per se, but appear to be the consequence of difference in ability to effectively use specific types of distal information such as room geometry. The Navigation Ability Test showed the route- times walked with eyes closed are always longer than in normal people and the mistakes improved with training. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that Navigation Ability Test could suggest to the coach and trainers valuable information about the characteristics of the players and how they should play in the field. Although there are some intrinsic difficulties, for example in creating patient-specific versions of the test, preliminary normative data indicate that this original test is workable and provides important information in therapy rehabilitation for vestibular disorder.