The effects of attention capacity on dynamic balance control following concussion

The purpose of this study was to examine how individuals modulate attention in a gait/cognition dual task during a 4-week period following a concussion. Ten individuals suffering from a grade 2 concussion and 10 matched controls performed a single task of level walking, a seated auditory Stroop task and a simultaneous auditory Stroop and walking task. Reaction time and accuracy were measured from the Stroop task. Dynamic balance control during gait was measured by the interaction (displacement and velocity) between the center of mass (CoM) and center of pressure (CoP) in the coronal and sagittal planes. Concussed individuals shifted from conservative control of balance (shorter separation between CoM and CoP) immediately after injury to normal balance control over 28 days post-injury. Immediately after injury, correlations analyses using each subject on each testing day as a data point showed that there was a spectrum of deficient performance among concussed individuals on the first testing day. Within a testing session, deficiencies in reaction time of processing involved in the Stroop task were commonly seen with reduce dynamic balance control. However, the prioritization was not always towards the same task between trials. There were no correlations in the control group. Information provided in this study would enhance our understanding of the interaction between attention and gait following concussion.