2BALANCE: Test-retest reliability of a cognitive-motor dual-task protocol

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Maya Danneels ◽  
Ruth Van Hecke ◽  
Laura Leyssens ◽  
Dirk Cambier ◽  
Raymond van de Berg ◽  
...  

PURPOSE: Aside from typical symptoms such as dizziness and vertigo, persons with vestibular disorders often have cognitive and motor problems. These symptoms have been assessed in single-task condition. However, dual-tasks assessing cognitive-motor interference might be an added value as they reflect daily life situations better. Therefore, the 2BALANCE protocol was developed. In the current study, the test-retest reliability of this protocol was assessed. METHODS: The 2BALANCE protocol was performed twice in 20 healthy young adults with an in-between test interval of two weeks. Two motor tasks and five different cognitive tasks were performed in single and dual-task condition. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), the standard error of measurement, and the minimal detectable difference were calculated. RESULTS: All cognitive tasks, with the exception of the mental rotation task, had favorable reliability results (0.26≤ICC≤0.91). The dynamic motor task indicated overall substantial reliability values in all conditions (0.67≤ICC≤0.98). Similar results were found for the static motor task during dual-tasking (0.50≤ICC≤0.92), but were slightly lower in single-task condition (–0.26≤ICC≤0.75). CONCLUSIONS: The 2BALANCE protocol was overall consistent across trials. However, the mental rotation task showed lowest reliability values.

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 2099-2117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A. Whitfield ◽  
Zoe Kriegel ◽  
Adam M. Fullenkamp ◽  
Daryush D. Mehta

Purpose Prior investigations suggest that simultaneous performance of more than 1 motor-oriented task may exacerbate speech motor deficits in individuals with Parkinson disease (PD). The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the extent to which performing a low-demand manual task affected the connected speech in individuals with and without PD. Method Individuals with PD and neurologically healthy controls performed speech tasks (reading and extemporaneous speech tasks) and an oscillatory manual task (a counterclockwise circle-drawing task) in isolation (single-task condition) and concurrently (dual-task condition). Results Relative to speech task performance, no changes in speech acoustics were observed for either group when the low-demand motor task was performed with the concurrent reading tasks. Speakers with PD exhibited a significant decrease in pause duration between the single-task (speech only) and dual-task conditions for the extemporaneous speech task, whereas control participants did not exhibit changes in any speech production variable between the single- and dual-task conditions. Conclusions Overall, there were little to no changes in speech production when a low-demand oscillatory motor task was performed with concurrent reading. For the extemporaneous task, however, individuals with PD exhibited significant changes when the speech and manual tasks were performed concurrently, a pattern that was not observed for control speakers. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.8637008


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (12) ◽  
pp. 1254-1259 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Howell ◽  
Anna N. Brilliant ◽  
William P. Meehan

Context The tandem gait test is a method for assessing dynamic postural control and part of the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool, versions 3 and 5. However, its reliability among child and adolescent athletes has yet to be established. Objective To examine the test-retest reliability of the single-task and dual-task tandem gait test among healthy child and adolescent athletes. Design Descriptive laboratory study. Setting Sports injury-prevention center. Patients or Other Participants Uninjured and healthy athletes between the ages of 9 and 18 years. Intervention(s) Tandem gait measures repeated 3 times across the period of approximately 1 month. Main Outcome Measure(s) Participants completed the tandem gait test under single-task and dual-task (ie, while simultaneously executing a cognitive task) conditions. Our primary outcome measure was completion time during the single-task and dual-task conditions. We also assessed cognitive accuracy and response rate while participants completed the dual-task tandem gait test. Results Thirty-two child and adolescent athletes completed the study (mean age = 14.3 ± 2.4 years; females = 16). Single-task tandem gait times were similar across the 3 testing sessions (14.4 ± 4.8, 13.5 ± 4.2, and 13.8 ± 4.8 seconds; P = .45). Dual-task tandem gait times steadily improved across the test timeline (18.6 ± 6.9, 16.6 ± 4.5, and 15.8 ± 4.7 seconds; P = .02). Bivariate correlations indicated moderately high to high agreement from test 1 to test 2 (single-task r = .627; dual-task r = 0.655) and from test 2 to test 3 (single-task r = 0.852; dual-task r = 0.775). Both the single-task (intraclass correlation coefficient; ICC [3,1] = 0.86; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.73, 0.93) and dual-task (ICC [3,1] = 0.84; 95% CI = 0.69, 0.92) conditions demonstrated high reliability across testing sessions. Conclusions Tandem gait outcome measures demonstrated high test-retest reliability in both the single- and dual-task conditions. The overall reliability was within the acceptable range for clinical practice, but improvements across tests suggested a moderate practice effect. Tandem gait represents a reliable, dynamic, postural-control test that requires minimal space, cost, and time.


Brain ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (7) ◽  
pp. 2149-2164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loïc Carment ◽  
Lucile Dupin ◽  
Laura Guedj ◽  
Maxime Térémetz ◽  
Marie-Odile Krebs ◽  
...  

Abstract Impairments in attentional, working memory and sensorimotor processing have been consistently reported in schizophrenia. However, the interaction between cognitive and sensorimotor impairments and the underlying neural mechanisms remains largely uncharted. We hypothesized that altered attentional processing in patients with schizophrenia, probed through saccadic inhibition, would partly explain impaired sensorimotor control and would be reflected as altered task-dependent modulation of cortical excitability and inhibition. Twenty-five stabilized patients with schizophrenia, 17 unaffected siblings and 25 healthy control subjects were recruited. Subjects performed visuomotor grip force-tracking alone (single-task condition) and with increased cognitive load (dual-task condition). In the dual-task condition, two types of trials were randomly presented: trials with visual distractors (requiring inhibition of saccades) or trials with addition of numbers (requiring saccades and addition). Both dual-task trial types required divided visual attention to the force-tracking target and to the distractor or number. Gaze was measured during force-tracking tasks, and task-dependent modulation of cortical excitability and inhibition were assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation. In the single-task, patients with schizophrenia showed increased force-tracking error. In dual-task distraction trials, force-tracking error increased further in patients, but not in the other two groups. Patients inhibited fewer saccades to distractors, and the capacity to inhibit saccades explained group differences in force-tracking performance. Cortical excitability at rest was not different between groups and increased for all groups during single-task force-tracking, although, to a greater extent in patients (80%) compared to controls (40%). Compared to single-task force-tracking, the dual-task increased cortical excitability in control subjects, whereas patients showed decreased excitability. Again, the group differences in cortical excitability were no longer significant when failure to inhibit saccades was included as a covariate. Cortical inhibition was reduced in patients in all conditions, and only healthy controls increased inhibition in the dual-task. Siblings had similar force-tracking and gaze performance as controls but showed altered task-related modulation of cortical excitability and inhibition in dual-task conditions. In patients, neuropsychological scores of attention correlated with visuomotor performance and with task-dependant modulation of cortical excitability. Disorganization symptoms were greatest in patients with weakest task-dependent modulation of cortical excitability. This study provides insights into neurobiological mechanisms of impaired sensorimotor control in schizophrenia showing that deficient divided visual attention contributes to impaired visuomotor performance and is reflected in impaired modulation of cortical excitability and inhibition. In siblings, altered modulation of cortical excitability and inhibition is consistent with a genetic risk for cortical abnormality.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1979 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qipeng Song ◽  
Wei Sun ◽  
Cui Zhang ◽  
Min Mao ◽  
Li Li

Falls during stair negotiation have become one of the leading causes of accidental death. The effects of a concurrent cognitive or manual dual-task paradigm on dynamic gait stability remain uncertain. How much dynamic gait stability is influenced by gait velocity is also not clear. A total of 16 healthy young females descended a staircase under three different walking conditions: descend stairs only (single task), descend stairs while performing subtraction (cognitive dual-task), and descend stairs while carrying a glass of water (manual dual-task). An eight-camera Vicon motion analysis system and a Kistler force plate embedded into the third step of the staircase were used synchronously to collect kinematic and kinetic data. Gait velocity decreased and dynamic gait stability increased with both cognitive and manual dual-task conditions. The center of mass–center of pressure inclination angle increased with gait velocity but decreased with the manual dual-task condition compared to the single-task condition. Changes in gait velocity caused by the dual-task paradigm can partially explain the effects of dual-task dynamic gait stability. The influence of gait velocity should be considered in the assessment of dual-task effects.


2021 ◽  
pp. 154596832110231
Author(s):  
Aditi A. Mullick ◽  
Melanie C. Baniña ◽  
Yosuke Tomita ◽  
Joyce Fung ◽  
Mindy F. Levin

Background. Poststroke individuals use their paretic arms less often than expected in daily life situations, even when motor recovery is scored highly in clinical tests. Real-world environments are often unpredictable and require the ability to multitask and make decisions about rapid and accurate arm movement adjustments. Objective. To identify whether and to what extent cognitive–motor deficits in well-recovered individuals with stroke affect the ability to rapidly adapt reaching movements in changing cognitive and environmental conditions. Methods. Thirteen individuals with mild stroke and 11 healthy controls performed an obstacle avoidance task in a virtual environment while standing. Subjects reached for a virtual juice bottle with their hemiparetic arm as quickly as possible under single- and dual-task conditions. In the single-task condition, a sliding glass door partially obstructed the reaching path of the paretic arm. A successful trial was counted when the subject touched the bottle without the hand colliding with the door. In the dual-task condition, subjects repeated the same task while performing an auditory–verbal working memory task. Results. Individuals with stroke had significantly lower success rates than controls in avoiding the moving door in single-task (stroke: 51.8 ± 21.2%, control: 70.6 ± 12.7%; P = .018) and dual-task conditions (stroke: 40.0 ± 27.6%, control: 65.3 ± 20.0%; P = .015). Endpoint speed was lower in stroke subjects for successful trials in both conditions. Obstacle avoidance deficits were exacerbated by increased cognitive demands in both groups. Individuals reporting greater confidence using their hemiparetic arm had higher success rates. Conclusion. Clinically well-recovered individuals with stroke may have persistent deficits performing a complex reaching task.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 371-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Basil Wahn ◽  
Basil Wahn ◽  
Peter König

Human information processing is limited by attentional resources. Two questions that are discussed in multisensory research are (1) whether there are separate spatial attentional resources for each sensory modality and (2) whether multisensory integration is influenced by attentional load. We investigated these questions using a dual task paradigm: Participants performed two spatial tasks (a multiple object tracking [‘MOT’] task and a localization [‘LOC’] task) either separately (single task condition) or simultaneously (dual task condition). In the MOT task, participants visually tracked a small subset of several randomly moving objects. In the LOC task, participants either received visual, tactile, or redundant visual and tactile location cues. In the dual task condition, we found a substantial decrease in participants’ performance and an increase in participants’ mental effort (indicated by an increase in pupil size) relative to the single task condition. Importantly, participants performed equally well in the dual task condition regardless of whether they received visual, tactile, or redundant multisensory (visual and tactile) location cues in the LOC task. This result suggests that having spatial information coming from different modalities does not facilitate performance, thereby indicating shared spatial attentional resources for the tactile and visual modality. Also, we found that participants integrated redundant multisensory information optimally even when they experienced additional attentional load in the dual task condition. Overall, findings suggest that (1) spatial attentional resources for the tactile and visual modality overlap and that (2) the integration of spatial cues from these two modalities occurs at an early pre-attentive processing stage.


2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1184-1199 ◽  
Author(s):  
André J. Szameitat ◽  
Torsten Schubert ◽  
Karsten Müller ◽  
D. Yves von Cramon

We report a study that investigated the neuroanatomical correlates of executive functions in dual-task performance with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants performed an auditory and a visual three-choice reaction task either separately as single tasks or concurrently as dual tasks. In the dual-task condition, two stimuli were presented in rapid succession to ensure interference between the component tasks (psychological refractory period). The behavioral data showed considerable performance decrements in the dual-task compared to the single-task condition. Dual-task-related activation was detected with two different neuroimaging methods. First, we determined dual-task-related activation according to the method of cognitive subtraction. For that purpose, activation in the dual-task was compared directly with activation in the single-task conditions. This analysis revealed that cortical areas along the inferior frontal sulcus (IFS), the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) are involved in dual-task performance. The results of the subtraction method were validated with the method of parametric manipulation. For this purpose, a second dual-task condition was introduced, where the difficulty of the dual-task coordination was increased compared with the first dual-task condition. As expected, behavioral dual-task performance decreased with increased dual-task difficulty. Furthermore, the increased dual-task difficulty led to an increase of activation in those cortical regions that proved to be dual-task related with the subtraction method, that is, the IFS, the MFG, and the IPS. These results support the conclusion that dorsolateral prefrontal and superior parietal cortices are involved in the coordination of concurrent and interfering task processing.


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