Falling Head Over Heels: Investigating the higher-cognitive and electrophysiological processes underlying gait and falls
-
1
National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland
-
2
UCD, Ireland
The role of higher-level cognition and cortical activity in walking gait and falls is increasingly evidenced by attentional demands in dual-task (DT) studies, and increased fall-risk in cognitively impaired clinical samples (Holtzer et al., 2007; Plummer-D’Amato, et al., 2008). However, the specific cognitive and neural processes need to be identified for effective clinical assessment and intervention. Experiment 1 compared change in gait speed from normal walk to a range of cognitive DT trials targeting motor processing, executive working memory, visuo-spatial executive processing, and simple language processing (alphabet recitation) in young (n=20) and older adults (n=17). Older adults were significantly slower at normal walking (p<0.05). Both groups evidenced decreased speed on all DT conditions, with the executive function domain tasks evidencing greater dual-task costs (evidenced more in the older group; p<0.005). Experiment 2 compared normal walking gait characteristics, cognitive performances and associated EEG neural activity across 3 groups; young adults (n=20), older adults without a history of falls (non-fallers; n=13) and older adult fallers (n=7). Executive control, motor processing, multisensory integration and pre-attentive processing were assessed while sitting, with concurrent recording of EEG/ERPs. Age-related differences were evident on cognitive performances as expected, which were reflected in ERP events, with the Stroop task revealing further latency differences between older faller and non-faller groups on the P3 component. Both studies evidence the role of executive function processing: this has implications for developing targeted screening assessments and interventions for those at risk in the community, as well as clinical populations.
Acknowledgements
Research funded by the Irish Research Council
References
Holtzer, R., Friedman, R., Lipton, R.B., Katz, M., Xue, X., and Verghese, J. (2007). The relationship between specific cognitive functions and falls in aging. Neuropsychology. 21(5), 540–548.
Plummer-D’Amato, P., Altmann, L., Saracino, D., Fox, E., Behrman, A., and Marsiske, M. (2008). Interactions between cognitive tasks and gait after stroke: A dual task study. Gait and Posture. 27(4), 683-688.
Keywords:
falls,
Gait,
Executive Function,
EEG,
Dual task,
Ageing,
Cognition
Conference:
Neuroscience Ireland Young Neuroscientists Symposium 2014 , Dublin, Ireland, 20 Sep - 20 Sep, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Early Career Neuroscience
Citation:
Walshe
EA,
Commins
S,
Patterson
M and
Roche
RA
(2014). Falling Head Over Heels: Investigating the higher-cognitive and electrophysiological processes underlying gait and falls.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Neuroscience Ireland Young Neuroscientists Symposium 2014 .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2014.87.00008
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
05 Sep 2014;
Published Online:
05 Sep 2014.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Elizabeth A Walshe, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland, elizabeth.a.walshe@gmail.com