Balance and mobility training with or without concurrent cognitive training improves the timed up and go (TUG), TUG cognitive, and TUG manual in healthy older adults: an exploratory study.

Abstract

The purpose was to explore the impact of balance and mobility training (BMT), balance and mobility plus cognitive training (BMT+C) and no training on the timed up and go (TUG), TUG cognitive (TUGcog), and TUG manual (TUGman) in older adults. A preliminary experiment examined the stability of these TUG measures over a 5-week period in older adults. Fifteen participants in the BMT group (70.2±3.2years) and 14 participants in the BMT+C group (68.7±5.5years) trained one-on-one, 3×/week for 12weeks on a balance obstacle course. The BMT group and the BMT+C group completed two or three tasks simultaneously, respectively. Fifteen participants in the control group received no training (66.7±4.2years). The TUG, TUGcog, and TUGman were measured in seconds at baseline, after the 12-week training, and after the 12-week follow-up. During the preliminary experiment, ten participants (67.0±6.9years) completed the three TUG measures 1/week for 5weeks. Both the BMT and BMT+C groups, but not the control group, exhibited significantly faster TUG, TUGcog, and TUGman after the intervention and maintained these improvements at the 12-week follow-up. No differences between the BMT and BMT+C groups emerged. The preliminary experiment showed that the three TUG measures were stable across five testing sessions. Both training groups improved functional mobility after the interventions and sustained these improvements over 12weeks. This is likely not a function of repeating the TUG, TUGcog, and TUGman tests since no repeated exposure effect was shown.