ABSTRACT

Postural control may be automated and leave residual attentional capacity for concurrent cognitive challenges – i.e. dual-task capacity. In old people and impaired individuals, the automatization is lost but dual-task performance may deteriorate even earlier in life.

A convenience sample of 112 healthy individuals represented three subgroups: <30 years, 30–60 years and >60 years. They were challenged in a novel dual-task test on postural control and attentional capacity, which allowed participants to improve the performance time compared with their baseline provided they had residual attentional capacity to utilize leading cues in their movement strategies.

Performance time in the baseline motor task (single task) increased with age, and relative improvement with cue (attentional capacity during dual task) decreased with age: correlation coefficients: 0.32 and −0.41. There were differences between the age groups in the improvement with cues: young 26.6% (6.6), middle aged 19.1% (12.2) and elderly 10.1% (11.6).

In general, all age groups performed the task faster with cues, but individual differences were large. The middle-aged group as well as the elderly group had a poorer dual-task performance than the young group. This suggests that attentional capacity during dual-task balance may be affected even before the sixties.

摘要

姿势控制可能是自动化的，并为并发的认知挑战留下剩余的注意力能力——即双重任务能力。在老年人和残障人士中，自动化会丢失，但双重任务表现可能会在生命早期恶化。

112 名健康个体的便利样本代表三个亚组：<30 岁、30-60 岁和 >60 岁。他们在一项关于姿势控制和注意力能力的新型双重任务测试中受到挑战，如果参与者有剩余的注意力能力，可以在他们的运动策略中利用领先线索，则该测试允许参与者与他们的基线相比提高表现时间。

基线运动任务（单项任务）的执行时间随着年龄的增长而增加，提示的相对改善（双重任务期间的注意力能力）随着年龄的增长而下降：相关系数：0.32 和 -0.41。各年龄组在线索改善方面存在差异：年轻 26.6% (6.6)、中年 19.1% (12.2) 和老年人 10.1% (11.6)。

一般来说，所有年龄段的人都能通过提示更快地完成任务，但个体差异很大。中年组和老年组的双重任务表现比年轻组差。这表明即使在 60 岁之前，双重任务平衡期间的注意力能力也可能受到影响。