Tuyển tập báo cáo các nghiên cứu khoa học quốc tế ngành y học dành cho các bạn tham khảo đề tài: Dual-task costs while walking increase in old age for some, but not for other tasks: an experimental study of healthy young and elderly persons | Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation BioMed Central Research Dual-task costs while walking increase in old age for some but not for other tasks an experimental study of healthy young and elderly persons Otmar Bock Open Access Address Institute of Physiology and Anatomy German Sport University Kõln Germany Email Otmar Bock - bock@ Published 13 November 2008 Received I I February 2008 Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2008 5 27 doi 1743-0003-5-27 Accepted 13 November 2008 This article is available from http content 5 1 27 2008 Bock licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background It has been suggested in the past that the ability to walk while concurrently engaging in a second task deteriorates in old age and that this deficit is related to the high incidence of falls in the elderly. However previous studies provided inconsistent findings about the existence of such an age-related dual-task deficit ARD . In an effort to explain this inconsistency we explored whether ARD while walking emerges for some but not for other types of task. Methods Healthy young and elderly subjects were tested under five different combinations of a walking and a non-walking task. The results were analysed jointly with those of a previous study from our lab such that a total of I 3 task combinations were evaluated. For each task combination and subject we calculated the mean dual-task costs across both constituent tasks and quantified ARD as the difference between those costs in elderly and in young subjects. Results An analysis of covariance yielded no significant effects of obstacle presence and overall task difficulty on ARD but a highly significant effect of .
