Listing 1 - 2 of 2 |
Sort by
|
Choose an application
Choose an application
As life expectancy is lengthening almost linearly, the relevancy of age-related differences and changes increases. Aging goes hand in hand with changes in multiple domains of functioning, namely declines in physical and cognitive domains occur. Consequently, having to perform tasks embedded in these domains becomes increasingly difficult with age and even more so when having to combine such tasks. For example, when conversing while cueing at the grocery store, older adults are at more risk of losing balance when insufficient attentional resources are allocated to maintaining balance. In the current study, we compared performances on single- and dual-tasks and their relationship with aging. More specifically, age-related differences between young and older adults with respect to possible interference of listening and postural control were examined. Furthermore, the impact of the task difficulty of a listening and postural control task was investigated. In the context of a larger project, we collected data from middle-aged and older adults (N = 44), respectively aged between 46-65 and 65-86 years old. A young-adult comparison group from a previous study that utilized the same experimental design already existed. The age of these young adults ranged between 19 and 46 years old. We focus exclusively on the comparison between young and older adults. To analyze the data Mixed ANOVA’s and post-hoc tests were used. Participants were asked to perform a simple listening task (i.e. repeating words immediately) and a postural control task (i.e. remaining balanced on a platform), as well as a dual-task where those two tasks were combined. The listening and postural control task had two difficulty levels that would alternate throughout the study. Consequently, the dual-tasking abilities of young and older adults were studied by comparing their single-task performances on a listening and postural control task with their performances on the dual-task. We hypothesized an age-related decrease in performances in single- and dual-task conditions, as well as a larger effect of the difficulty manipulations on older adults. In addition, we predicted larger proportional dual-task costs (pDTCs) and a prioritization effect for older adults. Worse performances in the more difficult conditions in both single- and dual-task conditions of the listen and postural control task were found, proving the difficulty manipulations to be successful. A general age-related decrease in performances on both tasks was found, accompanied by a stronger effect of the manipulations for older adults. Further, no age-related difference in performance between single- and dual-task contexts was found, nor significant age-related effects on the pDTCs of listening or postural control. Additionally, no indication of significant pDTCs in postural control was found, but significant pDTCs for listening were. However, our results did not confirm prioritization for older adults. Nonetheless, the study had a novel finding, namely that even a task as simple as ours interferes with postural control, even though it does not require comprehension, nor memorization.
Listing 1 - 2 of 2 |
Sort by
|