Ranking the difficulty of the cognitive tasks in Dual-Tasks during walking in healthy adults.

OBJECTIVES

To rank the cognitive tasks commonly used in clinical practices based on their difficulties in healthy adults while walking. Dual tasks have been widely used in clinical settings for different purposes such as detecting early cognitive impairments and identifying fall risk factors among the population of neurological diseases.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study, conducted from January to March 2021, included a sample of 26 healthy adults who were asked to demonstrate six different cognitive tasks at random while performing a gait speed test. An accelerometer positioned on the lower back at the umbilical level was used to measure participants' sway. After each task, participants rated the task's difficulty using the perceived difficulty scale.

RESULTS

(1) The cognitive tasks showed no significant effect on sway (> 0.05). (2) A statistically significant effect was observed for the cognitive tasks on perceived difficulty scale rating. (3) Statistically significant correlations were found between the perceived difficulty scale and the acceleration measures.

CONCLUSION

This study was able to rank the cognitive tasks based on the participants' perceived difficulty scale. Furthermore, significant correlations were identified between the perceived difficulty and the sway measurements.