A systematic review of the effects of multisensory environmental stimulation on the health of older adults

Introduction Against the backdrop of population aging, multisensory environmental stimulation serves as a non-pharmacological intervention that benefits cognitive and emotional health in older adults. Methods This review systematically searched WOS and PubMed (2000–January 2026) and included 108 studies. The samples covered 13 older adult subpopulations (e.g., dementia, healthy, disabled, psychiatric disorders). Interventions involved seven sensory modalities—auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, gustatory, and thermal—with audiovisual-olfactory-tactile combinations being the most common. The quality of evidence was assessed using GRADE. Results Auditory and visual interventions had the richest evidence for emotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes, while gustatory and thermal studies were scarce, and physical function outcomes often showed non-significant results. Only 7 studies (6.5%) were moderate quality; over 90% were low/very low, with risk of bias being the main downgrading factor, followed by imprecision. Discussion Multisensory stimulation shows stable potential for improving emotion, cognition, and behavior, but current trials lack design rigor and standardized protocols, with many gaps in sensory dimensions and subpopulations. Current evidence suggests that therapeutic environments should adopt audiovisual synchronization as the core, supplemented by other modules based on resources, and support personalized regulation. Few studies have examined dose parameters (e.g., intensity), making dose-response relationships unclear. Future research should expand target populations and outcome measures, refine dose-parameter studies, and develop standardized virtual-based intervention programs tailored to diverse older adult groups, thereby elevating the evidence level and providing scientific guidance for creating multisensory healing environments.