Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, 1959 NE Pacific Street, P.O. Box 356490, Seattle, WA 98125, USA.
Parkinsons Dis. 2012;2012:671261. doi: 10.1155/2012/671261. Epub 2012 Dec 29.
Gait impairments are prevalent among people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Instructions to focus on walking can improve walking in PD, but the use of such a cognitive strategy may be limited under dual-task walking conditions, when walking is performed simultaneously with concurrent cognitive or motor tasks. This study examined how dual-task performance of walking and a concurrent cognitive task was affected by instructions in people with PD compared to healthy young and older individuals. Dual-task walking and cognitive task performance was characterized under two sets of instructions as follows: (1) focus on walking and (2) focus on the cognitive task. People with PD and healthy adults walked faster when instructed to focus on walking. However, when focused on walking, people with PD and young adults demonstrated declines in the cognitive task. This suggests that dual-task performance is flexible and can be modified by instructions in people with PD, but walking improvements may come at a cost to cognitive task performance. The ability to modify dual-task performance in response to instructions or other task and environmental factors is critical to mobility in daily life. Future research should continue to examine factors that influence dual-task performance among people with PD.
步态障碍在帕金森病（PD）患者中很常见。专注于行走的指令可以改善 PD 患者的行走能力，但在同时进行认知或运动任务的双重任务行走条件下，这种认知策略的使用可能会受到限制。本研究比较了 PD 患者与健康年轻和年长个体，考察了在认知任务同时进行的情况下，指令如何影响双重任务行走和认知任务的表现。在以下两种指令条件下对双重任务行走和认知任务的表现进行了描述：（1）专注于行走，（2）专注于认知任务。当被指示专注于行走时，PD 患者和健康成年人的行走速度会加快。然而，当专注于行走时，PD 患者和年轻成年人在认知任务中的表现会下降。这表明，双重任务表现是灵活的，可以通过指令在 PD 患者中进行调整，但行走能力的提高可能会以认知任务表现为代价。根据指令或其他任务和环境因素调整双重任务表现的能力对日常生活中的移动能力至关重要。未来的研究应继续研究影响 PD 患者双重任务表现的因素。
