|
Aging and dual-task walking: new findings in support of cognitive compensation in older adults| old_uid | 11820 |
|---|
| title | Aging and dual-task walking: new findings in support of cognitive compensation in older adults |
|---|
| start_date | 2012/11/15 |
|---|
| schedule | 10h30-12h |
|---|
| online | no |
|---|
| location_info | salle de réunion de l’UFR |
|---|
| summary | A usual way to assess the extent to which gait places demands on cognitive resources is to examine the individuals’ ability for dual tasking, which consists in walking while simultaneously performing a secondary cognitive task. Overall, studies reported age-related dual-task deficits while walking, involving larger decrements in gait performance in older adults (OA) than in young adults (YA). A likely explanation for these results is that gait control increasingly relies on cognitive processes with aging while at the same time attention capacity and other relevant cognitive resources are reduced. Most previous studies are, however, limited by the fact that the walking task was not goal-directed. Indeed, without a clearly defined goal, reaching a conclusion as to whether dual-task-dependent gait changes reflect or not suboptimal solutions for completing the walking task is tricky. To address this issue, we conducted a series of experiments where YA and OA performed dual-task treadmill walking, whose goal is to maintain constant walking speed. Our results indicate that OA maintained more robust strategies than YA to achieve treadmill walking requirements when dual tasking, likely reflecting a beneficial effect of cognitive activities on gait control. We propose that OA might have relied on neural compensation to stabilize dual-task performance. |
|---|
| responsibles | Hoffmann, Marin |
|---|
| |
|