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Walking while talking: effect of task prioritization in the elderly.

Joe Verghese1, Gail Kuslansky, Roee Holtzer

  • 1Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, Bronx, NY, USA. jverghes@aecom.yu.edu

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
|January 9, 2007
PubMed
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Older adults prioritize walking over talking when given specific instructions during walking while talking (WWT) tasks. Instructions influence gait adjustments, demonstrating task prioritization effects in healthy aging.

Area of Science:

  • Gerontology
  • Neuroscience
  • Biomechanics

Background:

  • The aging population faces challenges in dual-tasking, impacting mobility and fall risk.
  • Understanding task prioritization in older adults is crucial for developing interventions to maintain independence.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how different instructions affect task prioritization during the walking while talking (WWT) task in older adults.
  • To compare gait and verbal performance under varied attentional demands.

Main Methods:

  • A cross-sectional survey design with within-subject comparisons was employed.
  • 189 community-dwelling older adults (mean age 80.2 years) without dementia participated.
  • Gait and verbal measures were collected during two WWT conditions: attending to both (WWT-C) and only talking (WWT-T).

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Main Results:

  • Task prioritization was evident in gait parameters, not verbal output.
  • Walking velocity decreased more significantly in the WWT-T condition (28.3%) compared to WWT-C (26.4%).
  • Slower velocity, reduced cadence, and longer stride length were observed during WWT-T versus WWT-C.

Conclusions:

  • Instructional cues can elicit task prioritization effects in older adults performing the WWT task.
  • These findings highlight the cognitive-motor control strategies employed by older adults during dual-tasking.