Cargando…

Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths

Dual-task walking may lead to gait instability and a higher fall risk in older adults, particularly when walking in a busy city street. Challenging street features such as narrow sidewalks not only discourage walking, but are also likely to be taxing for older adults’ cognitive resources and gait ch...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hennah, Charlotte, Ellis, Geraint, Doumas, Michail
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8694444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34936676
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261647
_version_ 1784619357193633792
author Hennah, Charlotte
Ellis, Geraint
Doumas, Michail
author_facet Hennah, Charlotte
Ellis, Geraint
Doumas, Michail
author_sort Hennah, Charlotte
collection PubMed
description Dual-task walking may lead to gait instability and a higher fall risk in older adults, particularly when walking in a busy city street. Challenging street features such as narrow sidewalks not only discourage walking, but are also likely to be taxing for older adults’ cognitive resources and gait characteristics. The aim of this study was to assess the way older adults’ gait characteristics are affected by walking on a narrow path while performing a challenging cognitive task in lab conditions imitating common urban environments. Nineteen young and eighteen older adults walked on a narrow (40cm) and a wide (80cm) path and performed a cognitive (n-back) task individually adjusted to 80% accuracy. The two tasks were performed separately (Single-Task) and concurrently (Dual-Task). Both groups walked faster, and their step width was narrower on the narrow path. During dual-task walking on the narrow path, older adults showed significant dual-task costs in the cognitive task, gait speed, step width, and stride length. Dual-task walking was associated with decreased gait speed and stride length in both age groups, suggesting that dual-task walking may adversely affect gait, particularly when walking on narrow paths. These conditions may lead to gait instability and an increased fall risk for older adults, particularly when walking along the narrow sidewalks commonly found within the built environment. However, more research is needed in an urban setting to determine the extent of the fall risk narrow sidewalks present for older adults.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8694444
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-86944442021-12-23 Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths Hennah, Charlotte Ellis, Geraint Doumas, Michail PLoS One Research Article Dual-task walking may lead to gait instability and a higher fall risk in older adults, particularly when walking in a busy city street. Challenging street features such as narrow sidewalks not only discourage walking, but are also likely to be taxing for older adults’ cognitive resources and gait characteristics. The aim of this study was to assess the way older adults’ gait characteristics are affected by walking on a narrow path while performing a challenging cognitive task in lab conditions imitating common urban environments. Nineteen young and eighteen older adults walked on a narrow (40cm) and a wide (80cm) path and performed a cognitive (n-back) task individually adjusted to 80% accuracy. The two tasks were performed separately (Single-Task) and concurrently (Dual-Task). Both groups walked faster, and their step width was narrower on the narrow path. During dual-task walking on the narrow path, older adults showed significant dual-task costs in the cognitive task, gait speed, step width, and stride length. Dual-task walking was associated with decreased gait speed and stride length in both age groups, suggesting that dual-task walking may adversely affect gait, particularly when walking on narrow paths. These conditions may lead to gait instability and an increased fall risk for older adults, particularly when walking along the narrow sidewalks commonly found within the built environment. However, more research is needed in an urban setting to determine the extent of the fall risk narrow sidewalks present for older adults. Public Library of Science 2021-12-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8694444/ /pubmed/34936676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261647 Text en © 2021 Hennah et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hennah, Charlotte
Ellis, Geraint
Doumas, Michail
Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths
title Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths
title_full Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths
title_fullStr Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths
title_full_unstemmed Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths
title_short Dual task walking in healthy aging: Effects of narrow and wide walking paths
title_sort dual task walking in healthy aging: effects of narrow and wide walking paths
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8694444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34936676
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261647
work_keys_str_mv AT hennahcharlotte dualtaskwalkinginhealthyagingeffectsofnarrowandwidewalkingpaths
AT ellisgeraint dualtaskwalkinginhealthyagingeffectsofnarrowandwidewalkingpaths
AT doumasmichail dualtaskwalkinginhealthyagingeffectsofnarrowandwidewalkingpaths