Krishnan Vennila, Cho Young-Hee, Mohamed Olfat
Department of Physical Therapy, California State University Long Beach, CA, 90840 United States.
Department of Psychology, California State University Long Beach, CA, 90840 United States.
Gait Posture. 2017 Sep;57:136-140. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2017.06.006. Epub 2017 Jun 10.
While cognitive-motor interference in dual-task activities is well established, it is still unknown how such interference is influenced by concurrent visual challenges. Nineteen community-dwelling healthy, cognitively intact, older adults (Mean±SD=71.45±1.25years, 6 males) and nineteen young adults (Mean±SD=22.25±0.68years, 4 males) performed a cognitive-single-task (serial subtraction by 3), a walking-single-task and a cognitive-walking-dual-task under normal, blurred and peripheral-vision-loss conditions (artificially imposed using goggles). Gait parameters and the number of correct responses were measured. Dual task costs for both walking and cognition were computed. Results showed that higher walking cost was seen with impaired vision (p=0.05) and with older adults (p=0.03); greater cognitive cost was seen with impaired vision (p=0.01), but no difference in cognitive cost was seen between young and older adults. Thus, when faced with impaired vision, both young and older adults appear to allocate less attention to cognition than to walking, and thus prioritize walking. Future work should explore whether dual-task training under visual challenge could reduce cognitive-motor interference and reduce fall risks in older adults.
虽然双任务活动中的认知-运动干扰已得到充分证实，但这种干扰如何受到同时存在的视觉挑战的影响仍不清楚。19名居住在社区的健康、认知功能完好的老年人（平均年龄±标准差=71.45±1.25岁，男性6名）和19名年轻人（平均年龄±标准差=22.25±0.68岁，男性4名）在正常、模糊和周边视力丧失条件下（使用护目镜人为造成）进行了认知单任务（逐次减3）、步行单任务和认知-步行双任务。测量了步态参数和正确反应的数量。计算了步行和认知的双任务成本。结果表明，视力受损时步行成本更高（p=0.05），老年人的步行成本也更高（p=0.03）；视力受损时认知成本更高（p=0.01），但年轻人和老年人之间的认知成本没有差异。因此，当面临视力受损时，年轻人和老年人似乎都将较少的注意力分配给认知而不是步行，因此将步行作为优先事项。未来的研究应探索在视觉挑战下进行双任务训练是否可以减少认知-运动干扰并降低老年人的跌倒风险。
