Relationship between higher and lower level serial subtraction task performance and gait during a 6‐minute walk test

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cognitive fatigue as measured by performance on the serial subtract 3 (S3) and 7 (S7) at the end of a two‐hour protocol and walking performance as measured by step length (SL), gait speed (GS), and stride length (StL) in the first 30‐seconds of a 6‐minute walk test (6MWT) immediately following a cognitively fatiguing protocol.MethodsHealthy older adults (N=12, age= 75.39±6.67 yrs, height=176.01±51.94 cm, weight=61.97±12.61 kg) were involved in 2 days of a 2‐hour protocol of cognitively fatiguing tasks (S3 and S7, continuous performance task (CPT), rapid visual input processing (RVIP),) after which they were tasked to complete a 6MWT at their normal speed. Gait speed, step length and stride length were measured using the OptoGait™. A bi‐variate Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationship between scores on the serial subtract 3 and 7 (after 2‐hours of cognitively fatiguing tasks) and GS, SL and StL for the first 30 seconds of the 6MWT.ResultsThere was a positive significant relationship between S3 number correct and SL (R=.512, p=.018), GS (R=.457, p=.037), and StL (R=.481, p=.027) and S3 number of attempts and SL (R=.474, p=.030), GS (R=.434, p=.050), StL (R=.450, p=.041). There was no significant relationship between S3 number incorrect and S7 number correct, number incorrect and total attempts and gait parameters (p>.05).ConclusionResults suggest that after cognitive fatigue there is a relationship between lower level cognitive tasks and gait. Results suggest that showing lower level unique and characteristic errors in arithmetical reasoning may reflect underlying impairment in certain cognitive functions involved in gait. However, more challenging cognitive tasks (S7) was not related to gait. This may suggest that lower level executive function is involved in walking performance in older adults. Further research needs to be conducted to explore the exact relationship between higher and lower level cognitive tasks and single task gait and the neural circuitry involved.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.