Abstract
BackgroundDual-task gait performance declines as humans age, leading to increased fall risk among older adults. It is unclear whether different secondary cognitive tasks mediate age-related decline in dual-task gait. This study aimed to examine how type and difficulty level of the secondary cognitive tasks differentially affect dual-task gait in older adults.MethodsTwenty young and twenty older adults participated in this single-session study. We employed four different types of secondary tasks and each consisted of two difficulty levels, yielding eight different dual-task conditions. The dual-task conditions included walking and 1) counting backward by 3 s or by 7 s; 2) remembering a 5-item or 7-item lists; 3) responding to a simple or choice reaction time tasks; 4) generating words from single or alternated categories. Gait speed and cognitive task performance under single- and dual-task conditions were used to compute dual-task cost (DTC, %) with a greater DTC indicating a worse performance.ResultsA significant three-way interaction was found for the gait speed DTC (p = .04). Increased difficulty in the reaction time task significantly increased gait speed DTC for older adults (p = .01) but not for young adults (p = .90). In contrast, increased difficulty level in the counting backward task significantly increased gait speed DTC for young adults (p = .03) but not for older adults (p = .85). Both groups responded similarly to the increased task difficulty in the other two tasks.ConclusionsOlder adults demonstrated a different response to dual-task challenges than young adults. Aging might have different impacts on various cognitive domains and result in distinctive dual-task gait interference patterns.
Highlights
Dual-task gait performance declines as humans age, leading to increased fall risk among older adults
Participants were excluded if they had a history of neurological disorders, significant musculoskeletal issues in the lower body that would interfere with walking, cognitive impairment (Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) < 24/30), or unstable medical issues
Our results showed that older adults, compared to young adults, were more susceptible to dualtask interference, and responded differently to the demands imposed by different dual-task conditions
Summary
Dual-task gait performance declines as humans age, leading to increased fall risk among older adults. It is unclear whether different secondary cognitive tasks mediate age-related decline in dual-task gait. This study aimed to examine how type and difficulty level of the secondary cognitive tasks differentially affect dual-task gait in older adults. Previous efforts have identified several risk factors for falls, including female gender and older age; neither of which is modifiable [3,4,5]. There is an urgent need to identify the modifiable factors of falls such that targeted interventions can be developed. Dual-task gait assessment often involves walking while performing another cognitive task. Various cognitive tasks have been used in dual-task gait research including
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