Dual task interference during gait in patients with unilateral vestibular disorders

Vestibular patients show slower and unsteady gait; they have also been shown to need greater cognitive resources when carrying out balance and cognitive dual tasks (DT). This study investigated DT interference during gait in a middle-aged group of subjects with dizziness and unsteadiness after unilateral vestibular neuronitis and in a healthy control group.

Fourteen individuals with subacute unilateral vestibular impairment after neuronitis and seventeen healthy subjects performed gait and cognitive tasks in single and DT conditions. A statistical gait analysis system was used and spatio-temporal parameters were considered. The cognitive task, consisting of backward counting by three, was tape recorded and the number of right figures was then calculated.

Both patients and controls showed a more conservative gait during DT and between groups significant differences were not found. A significant decrease in cognitive performance during DT was found only in the vestibular group.

Results suggest that less attentional resources are available during gait in vestibular patients compared to controls, and that a priority is given in keeping up the motor task to the detriment of a decrease of the cognitive performance during DT.