Sex Differences in Performance of a Clinically-Relevant Dual-Task Assessment in Healthy College Students

Abstract

ObjectiveTo determine if biological sex influenced performance on a novel dual-task (DT) assessment which consisted of commonly used clinical measures of sport concussion (SC) in healthy college students.BackgroundDT assessments consist of motor and cognitive tasks administered simultaneously and show promise as clinical measures of SC.Design/MethodsOur cross-sectional study included 60 (53.3% female) healthy, recreationally active college students (age = 20.5 ± 1.34 years, height = 171.7 ± 9.33 cm, mass = 69.25 ± 12.23 kg). Participants completed the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) and timed tandem gait (TTG) test independently (single task [ST]) and concurrently (DT). The revised SAC (45 points) which included a 10-word list was utilized. The TTG composite score was a sum of the average time to completion for each SAC task (3 trials for immediate memory [10-word list], up to 5 trials for the digits-backwards task, and one trial for the months in reverse order and delayed recall tasks). Independent t-tests were used to assess for sex differences for SAC and TTG performance during ST and DT administration. 2 × 2 factorial analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to assess for sex (male, female) by task (ST, DT) interaction effects with effect sizes calculated using Cohen’s d. All analyses were assessed at α = 0.05.ResultsNo sex differences were observed for ST performance of the SAC (males = 37.1 ± 3.45 points, females = 37.4 ± 3.74 points; t[58] = 0.28, p = 0.78) or TTG (males = 44.3 ± 7.09 seconds, females = 46.1 ± 8.88 seconds; t[58] = 0.88, p = 0.38). No sex differences were observed for DT performance of the SAC (males = 39.7 ± 4.50 points, females = 39.2 ± 3.12 points; t[58] = 0.46, p = 0.64) or TTG (males = 52.1 ± 8.56 seconds, females = 52.1 ± 10.28 seconds; t[58] = 0.02, p = 0.98). No sex by task interaction effects were observed for SAC (F = 0.74, p = 0.39, d = 0.23) or TTG (F = 1.1, p = 0.30, d = 0.28) performance for ST or DT assessment.ConclusionsOur results indicate that our novel DT assessment was robust to sex differences in healthy college students which supports the utilization of our DT assessment across sexes without adjustment for interpretation.