Article

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of four different
home-based interventions on dual-task balance performance and to determine the
generalizability of the four trainings to untrained tasks.
Sixty older adults,
aged 65 and older, were randomly assigned to one of four home-based
interventions: single-task motor training, single-task cognitive training,
dual-task motor-cognitive training, and dual-task cognitive-cognitive training.
Participants received 60-min individualized training sessions, 3 times a week for
4 weeks. Prior to and following the training program, participants were asked to
walk under two single-task conditions (i.e. narrow walking and obstacle crossing)
and two dual-task conditions (i.e. a trained narrow walking while performing
verbal fluency task and an untrained obstacle crossing while counting backward by
3s task). A nine-camera motion capture system was used to collect the
trajectories of 32 reflective markers placed on bony landmarks of participants.
Three-dimensional kinematics of the whole body center of mass and base of support
were computed. Results from the extrapolated center of mass displacement
indicated that motor-cognitive training was more effective than the single-task
motor training to improve dual-task balance performance (p=0.04, ES=0.11).
Interestingly, balance performance under both single-task and dual-task
conditions can also be improved through a non-motor, single-task cognitive
training program (p=0.01, ES=0.13, and p=0.01, ES=0.11, respectively). However,
improved dual-task processing skills during training were not transferred to the
novel dual task (p=0.15, ES=0.09). This is the first study demonstrating that
home-based dual-task training can be effectively implemented to improve balance
performance during gait in older adults.
CI - Copyright (c) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS