Neuroscience Research Australia, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Exp Brain Res. 2022 Nov;240(11):2871-2883. doi: 10.1007/s00221-022-06458-9. Epub 2022 Sep 16.
Obstacle crossing requires visuospatial working memory to guide the trailing leg trajectory when vision in unavailable. Visuospatial working memory, as assessed with neuropsychological tests, declines with age, however, this remains to be investigated functionally in obstacle crossing. There is also evidence that visuospatial encoding during a secondary task interferes with balance control during stepping and walking in older people. Here, we studied the interaction effects of age by delay (study 1) and age by secondary visuospatial task (study 2) conditions on obstacle clearance in a visuospatial working memory -guided obstacle crossing task. Healthy young adults aged 19 to 36 years (n = 20 in study 1 and n = 17 in study 2) and healthy older adults aged 66 to 83 years (n = 29 in study 1 and n = 21 in study 2) were instructed to step over an obstacle with their leading leg and straddle it for a delay period before completing the crossing with their trailing leg. In study 1, two obstacle height conditions (12 cm, 18 cm) and two delay durations (20 s, 60 s) were presented in random order. In study 2, participants were required to attend to either no secondary task (control), a visuospatial secondary (star movement) task, or a nonspatial secondary (arithmetic) task, while straddling the obstacle for a delay duration of 20 s, at obstacle heights of 12 cm and 18 cm, randomly presented. Trailing leg kinematics (mean and variability of maximum toe clearance over the obstacle) were determined via motion capture. There were no statistically significant age by delay or age by secondary task interactions. In study 1, toe clearance variability was significantly greater in young adults and increased with increasing delay duration in both groups. In study 2, compared with the control condition, toe clearance variability was significantly greater in the non-spatial secondary task condition but not in the visuospatial condition. Contrary to our hypotheses, these findings suggest that young and older adults alike can store an obstacle representation via visuospatial working memory for durations of at least 60 s and use this information to safely scale their trailing leg over an obstacle. However, the increase in trailing leg toe clearance variability with delay duration suggests that obstacle representation starts to deteriorate even within the first 20 s regardless of age. The finding that undertaking a concurrent arithmetic task impaired visuospatial working memory-guided obstacle clearance suggests a potential increased risk of tripping during obstacle crossing while dual-tasking in both young and older people.
障碍物穿越需要视空间工作记忆来指导看不见时的尾随腿轨迹。然而,神经心理学测试评估的视空间工作记忆会随着年龄的增长而下降,但这在障碍物穿越的功能方面仍有待研究。还有证据表明,在老年人进行次要任务的视空间编码会干扰步进和行走时的平衡控制。在这里,我们通过延迟(研究 1)和次要视空间任务(研究 2)条件下的年龄与年龄的相互作用,研究了视空间工作记忆指导的障碍物穿越任务中年龄对障碍物清除的影响。健康的年轻成年人年龄在 19 至 36 岁之间(研究 1 中有 20 人,研究 2 中有 17 人)和健康的老年人年龄在 66 至 83 岁之间(研究 1 中有 29 人,研究 2 中有 21 人)被指示用他们的主导腿跨过障碍物,并在他们的尾随腿完成穿越之前用它跨越障碍物进行延迟。在研究 1 中,以随机顺序呈现两种障碍物高度条件(12cm,18cm)和两种延迟持续时间(20s,60s)。在研究 2 中,参与者在 20s 的障碍物跨越延迟期间,需要注意没有次要任务(对照)、视空间次要(星运动)任务或非空间次要(算术)任务,障碍物高度为 12cm 和 18cm,随机呈现。通过运动捕捉确定尾随腿运动学(最大脚趾越过障碍物的平均和最大可变性)。没有统计学上显著的年龄与延迟或年龄与次要任务的相互作用。在研究 1 中,年轻成年人的脚趾清除可变性显著较大,并且在两组中都随延迟持续时间的增加而增加。在研究 2 中,与对照条件相比,非空间次要任务条件下的脚趾清除可变性显著较大,但在视空间条件下则没有。与我们的假设相反,这些发现表明,年轻和老年成年人都可以通过视空间工作记忆存储障碍物表示,持续时间至少为 60s,并使用这些信息安全地将尾随腿越过障碍物。然而,随着延迟持续时间的增加,尾随腿脚趾清除的可变性增加,这表明即使在最初的 20s 内,障碍物表示也开始恶化,无论年龄大小。执行并发算术任务会损害视空间工作记忆指导的障碍物清除的发现表明,在年轻人和老年人在双重任务时,在障碍物穿越时可能会增加绊倒的风险。