Citation

Marsh AP, Geel SE. Gait Posture 2000; 12(2): 105-113.

Affiliation

Department of Health and Exercise Science, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7868, USA. marshap@wfu.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10998606

Abstract

A dual-task paradigm was used to determine the attentional demands of several postural control tasks in 16 older women (age, 71.5+/-3.4 years) and 14 young women (age, 25.5+/-2.4 years). Older women had slower verbal reaction times (VRT) compared with the younger women and increased reaction time more from a sitting to standing posture. Compared with the younger women, older women required more cognitive resources to maintain a simple eyes open standing posture versus an eyes open seated posture. Further, older women had significantly greater VRT during the dual-task conditions compared with younger women. However, VRT did not significantly change as the difficulty of the primary task increased in either group. These data have implications for older adults who may be at risk for falls in situations where they may be engaged in concurrent tasks, even when those tasks are considered automated and/or lower order operations.

Language: en