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Updated: Jun 12, 2025
Motor Dual-Tasks for Gait Analysis and Evaluation in Post-Stroke Patients
Published on: March 11, 2021
Effect of task difficulty on dual-task cost during dual-task walking in people with multiple sclerosis
Çağrı Gülşen1, Fatih Söke2, Fatma Aydin3
1Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey.
Background:
Cognitive-motor dual-task walking results a decrease in walking performance of patients with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) and it is known as dual-task cost (DTC). However, there is a lack of evidence about the effects of dual-tasks with hierarchical difficulty on DTC in PwMS.
Research Question:
This study aimed to investigate the effect of task difficulty on DTC during cognitive-motor dual-task walking in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS).
Methods:
32 PwMS and 32 healthy controls were included. The 6-meter walking test (6-Meter WT) with comfortable speed was used as single-task walking condition. For dual-task conditions, walking tasks and cognitive tasks at two difficulty levels (simple and difficult) were combined and DTC for four cognitive-motor dual-task walking conditions as simple motor-simple cognitive (SM-SC), simple motor-difficult cognitive (SM-DC), difficult motor-simple cognitive (DM-SC) and difficult motor-difficult cognitive (DM-DC) were calculated. The 6-Meter WT was used also for simple dual-task walking task. The 6-Meter WT was applied by walking in a narrow base condition for creating a difficult dual-task walking task. For cognitive task difficulty, participants were asked to count backwards by 3 as simple cognitive task and by 7 as difficult cognitive task.
Results:
DTC was higher in PwMS than control subjects. DTC in all conditions were different (SM-SC
Conclusion:
The results suggest that task difficulty affects the magnitude of DTC during cognitive-motor dual-task walking in PwMS. Moreover, difficult walking tasks combined with simple cognitive tasks result greater DCT on walking than simple walking tasks combined with difficult cognitive tasks.
