Talking instead of counting: A dual-task gait analysis comparison amongst elderly people

Dual tasks are used to evaluate the physical and cognitive abilities in multitasking scenarios. However, most dual tasks in the literature are not representative of daily life situations, which could question their relevance.

This work thus aimed at comparing two dual tasks, one frequently used in the literature and one that is more realistic, to determine if they generated different spatiotemporal gait parameters.

Thirty-five healthy older adults were filmed while performing gait under three conditions: simple gait, walking while counting backwards and walking while having a natural conversation. Spatiotemporal gait parameters were compared for the three conditions, and participants were asked to evaluate their comfort during each condition by giving their perception grades.

Results showed differences with very small to small effect sizes (0.01 - 0.14) in spatiotemporal gait parameters between walking while counting backwards and while having a natural conversation. Effect sizes were larger (0.06 - 0.36) between simple gait and each one of the two dual tasks. Perception grades were similar for simple gait (4.6/5 on average) and walking while having a natural conversation (4.3/5 on average), but were significantly different for walking while counting backwards (3.6/5 on average), which indicates greater discomfort.

These results showed that differences between the two dual tasks conditions were small although significant, suggesting similar trends, while natural conversation task was better perceived by participants.