Gaze diversion affects cognitive and motor performance in young adults when stepping over obstacles

Cho, HyeYoung; Romine, Nathaniel Lee; Barbieri, Fábio Augusto; Rietdyk, Shirley

doi:10.1016/j.gaitpost.2019.07.380

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Half of the texting-related falls occurred on stairs, likely reflecting impaired gait behavior when attention is divided and/or gaze is diverted (e.g. [53][54][55]). The high percentage of falls on stairs observed here is consistent with the peak in injury rate due to stair-related falls for ages 21-30 years [3].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Falls in young adults: The effect of sex, physical activity, and prescription medications

et al. 2021

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Falls are a major public health issue not only for older adults but also young adults, with fall-related injuries occurring more frequently in adult females than males. However, the sex differences in the frequency and circumstances of falls in young adults are understudied. This research quantified the frequency and circumstances of falls as a function of sex, physical activity, and prescription medications in young adults. For 16 weeks, young adult participants (N = 325; 89 males; 19.9±1.1 years) responded to a daily email asking if they had slipped, tripped, or fallen in the past 24 hours. Falls and fall-related injuries were not uncommon in young adults: 48% fell at least once, 25% fell more than once, and 10% reported an injury. The most common activities at the time of the fall for females were walking (44%) and sports (33%), and for males, sports (49%) and walking (37%). A zero-inflated Poisson model revealed that higher number of falls were associated with the following: higher levels of physical activity (p = 0.025), higher numbers of medications (p<0.0001), and being male (p = 0.008). Regarding circumstances of falling, females were more likely to be talking to a friend at the time of the fall (OR (95% CI): 0.35 (0.14–0.73); p = 0.01). For slips and trips without a fall, males and females reported the same number of slips (OR (95% CI): 0.885 (0.638–1.227) p = 0.46), but females reported more trips (OR (95% CI): 0.45 (0.30–0.67); p<0.01). Only females reported serious injuries such as concussion and fracture. In conclusion, the rate of falls in young adults was affected by physical activity levels, number of medications, and sex. Quantifying and understanding these differences leads to increased knowledge of falls across the lifespan and is instrumental in developing interventions to prevent falls.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Falls in young adults: The effect of sex, physical activity, and prescription medications

et al. 2021

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“…Previous dual-task studies have demonstrated that undertaking a secondary cognitive task significantly compromises performance in gait and balance tasks, which may increase fall risk (Yogev-Seligmann et al 2008 ; Worden et al 2016 ; Maylor et al 1996 ; Woollacott et al 2002 ; Menant, et al 2014 ). Those which have focused on obstacle crossing have confirmed the detrimental impact of ageing (Brown et al 2005 ; Kim et al 2007 ) and of tasks diverting gaze (Worden et al 2016 ; Cho et al 2019 ) or requiring increasing VS attention (Lo et al 2015 ) on safe clearance and/or secondary task performance. However, a comparison of the effects of secondary tasks tapping in different cognitive domains on obstacle crossing performance, in young and older adults, has yet to be investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Visuospatial working memory and obstacle crossing in young and older people

et al. 2022

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Obstacle crossing requires visuospatial working memory to guide the trailing leg trajectory when vision in unavailable. Visuospatial working memory, as assessed with neuropsychological tests, declines with age, however, this remains to be investigated functionally in obstacle crossing. There is also evidence that visuospatial encoding during a secondary task interferes with balance control during stepping and walking in older people. Here, we studied the interaction effects of age by delay (study 1) and age by secondary visuospatial task (study 2) conditions on obstacle clearance in a visuospatial working memory -guided obstacle crossing task. Healthy young adults aged 19 to 36 years (n = 20 in study 1 and n = 17 in study 2) and healthy older adults aged 66 to 83 years (n = 29 in study 1 and n = 21 in study 2) were instructed to step over an obstacle with their leading leg and straddle it for a delay period before completing the crossing with their trailing leg. In study 1, two obstacle height conditions (12 cm, 18 cm) and two delay durations (20 s, 60 s) were presented in random order. In study 2, participants were required to attend to either no secondary task (control), a visuospatial secondary (star movement) task, or a nonspatial secondary (arithmetic) task, while straddling the obstacle for a delay duration of 20 s, at obstacle heights of 12 cm and 18 cm, randomly presented. Trailing leg kinematics (mean and variability of maximum toe clearance over the obstacle) were determined via motion capture. There were no statistically significant age by delay or age by secondary task interactions. In study 1, toe clearance variability was significantly greater in young adults and increased with increasing delay duration in both groups. In study 2, compared with the control condition, toe clearance variability was significantly greater in the non-spatial secondary task condition but not in the visuospatial condition. Contrary to our hypotheses, these findings suggest that young and older adults alike can store an obstacle representation via visuospatial working memory for durations of at least 60 s and use this information to safely scale their trailing leg over an obstacle. However, the increase in trailing leg toe clearance variability with delay duration suggests that obstacle representation starts to deteriorate even within the first 20 s regardless of age. The finding that undertaking a concurrent arithmetic task impaired visuospatial working memory-guided obstacle clearance suggests a potential increased risk of tripping during obstacle crossing while dual-tasking in both young and older people.

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“…Sensory interference is affected by age and locomotor task. In younger adults, sensory interference did not alter foot targeting performance [ 13 ], but did alter performance in obstacle crossing [ 14 , 15 ] and stair descent [ 16 ]. These changes are consistent with the idea that more difficult tasks result in greater multitask impairment [ 17 , 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In previous studies, the nature and complexity of the gait task and the concurrent tasks have varied widely and it is important to specify the task complexity [ 7 , 14 ]. A framework to identify relative complexity of locomotor multitasks includes difficulty of the gait task, difficulty of the concurrent (non-gait) task, duration of the non-gait task, and magnitude of the sensory interference ( Fig 1 ; adapted from [ 14 ]). The gait task demands vary as a function of the number and characteristics of hazards in the walkway (e.g., size, contrast).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of visual sensory interference during multitask obstacle crossing in younger and older adults

Cho,

Rietdyk

2024

PLoS ONE

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When older adults step over obstacles during multitasking, their performance is impaired; the impairment results from central and/or sensory interference. The purpose was to determine if sensory interference alters performance under low levels of cognitive, temporal, and gait demand, and if the change in performance is different for younger versus older adults. Participants included 17 younger adults (20.9±1.9 years) and 14 older adults (69.7±5.4 years). The concurrent task was a single, simple reaction time (RT) task: depress button in response to light cue. The gait task was stepping over an obstacle (8 m walkway) in three conditions: (1) no sensory interference (no RT task), (2) low sensory interference (light cue on obstacle, allowed concurrent foveation of cue and obstacle), or (3) high sensory interference (light cue away from obstacle, prevented concurrent foveation of cue and obstacle). When standing, the light cue location was not relevant (no sensory interference). An interaction (sensory interference by task, p<0.01) indicated that RT was longer for high sensory interference during walking, but RT was not altered for standing, confirming that sensory interference increased RT during obstacle approach. An interaction (sensory interference by age, p<0.01) was observed for foot placement before the obstacle: With high sensory interference, younger adults placed the trail foot closer to the obstacle while older adults placed it farther back from the obstacle. The change increases the likelihood of tripping with the trail foot for younger adults, but with the lead limb for older adults. Recovery from a lead limb trip is more difficult due to shorter time for corrective actions. Overall, visual sensory interference impaired both RT and gait behavior with low levels of multitask demand. Changes in foot placement increased trip risk for both ages, but for different limbs, reducing the likelihood of balance recovery in older adults.

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Gaze diversion affects cognitive and motor performance in young adults when stepping over obstacles

Cited by 9 publications

References 25 publications

Falls in young adults: The effect of sex, physical activity, and prescription medications

Falls in young adults: The effect of sex, physical activity, and prescription medications

Visuospatial working memory and obstacle crossing in young and older people

The effect of visual sensory interference during multitask obstacle crossing in younger and older adults

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