Does attention switching between multiple tasks affect gait stability and task performance differently between younger a
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Does attention switching between multiple tasks affect gait stability and task performance differently between younger and older adults? Daniel Thomson1 · Amitabh Gupta2 · Matthew Liston1,2 Received: 8 June 2020 / Accepted: 30 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Gait stability and secondary task performance are affected by the need to share attention when dual-tasking. Further decrements may result from the need to switch attention between multiple secondary tasks. The aim of the current study was to determine the effects of attention switching upon gait stability and task performance in healthy younger and older adults. Ten healthy younger and ten healthy older adults walked on a treadmill at their preferred speed during three trials including: (1) baseline walking; (2) non-switching task walking, requiring response to an auditory-spatial or visual-spatial cue presented in an expected order; and (3) switching task walking, which required response to an auditory-spatial or visualspatial cue presented in an unexpected order. Response time and accuracy, the margin of stability in the frontal ( MoSML) and sagittal planes (MoSA: anterior, MoSP: posterior), step width and step length were calculated for non-switching and switching tasks. The MoSML, MoSA, MoSP, step width and step length during non-switching and switching tasks were normalized to baseline walking. Older adults took significantly longer to respond to cues and made more errors during the switching task compared to younger adults. Younger adults took narrower steps (p 0.05 being accepted as normally distributed. A two-factor mixed repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to determine differences in response accuracy and response time between groups (young vs older) and walking tasks (non-switching task vs switching task). A three-factor mixed repeatedmeasures ANOVA was performed to determine differences in M oS ML, M oSA, M oS P, step width and step length between groups (young vs older), tasks (non-switching task vs switching task) and strides (1 vs 2 vs 3). Variables which were not normally distributed were aligned and rank transformed using ARTool software (Wobbrock et al. 2011) prior to being included in ANOVA. If there were significant two-way interactions, a follow-up one-way repeatedmeasures ANOVA or Friedman’s ANOVA was performed. If a statistically significant difference was detected in follow-up testing or for statistically significant main effects, post hoc testing for between-group differences was performed using an independent-samples t test or a Mann–Whitney U test, and within-group differences were determined using a paired t test or Wilcoxon signed rank test depending on
13.3 (71.3) 22.7 (47.7) 1.2 (22.7) 21.8 (44.9)
0.9 (16.7) 5.7 (17.2) 7.5 (17.7) − 0.9 (19.2)
17.0 (70.7)
2.2 (16.2)
− 13.9 (33.4)
0.3 (36.4) − 3.8 (33.6) G × S, T − 1.7 (30.8) − 10.5 (42.5) 1.2 (33.6) − 8.8 (34.5)
Δ min MoSML (mm) Δ min MoSP (mm) Δ min MoSA (mm) Δ step width (mm) Δ step l
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