This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 1352458509106712v1 15/10/1215    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Hamilton, F. Articles by Evans, J. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Hamilton, F. Articles by Evans, J. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Walking and talking: an investigation of cognitive—motor dual tasking in multiple sclerosis

Section of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow

L. Rochester

HealthQWest, School of Nursing Midwifery and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, Clinical Ageing Research Unit, Newcastle University, UK

L. Paul

HealthQWest, Nursing and Healthcare, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow

D. Rafferty

HealthQWest, School of Nursing Midwifery and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University

CP O'Leary

Institute for Neurological Sciences, Southern General Hospital, Glasgow and Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow

JJ Evans

Section of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow, jje2k{at}clinmed.gla.ac.uk

Background: Deficits in motor functioning, including walking, and in cognitive functions, including attention, are known to be prevalent in multiple sclerosis (MS), though little attention has been paid to how impairments in these areas of functioning interact.

Objectives: This study investigated the effects of performing a concurrent cognitive task when walking in people with MS. Level of task demand was manipulated to investigate whether this affected level of dual-task decrement.

Method: Eighteen participants with MS and 18 healthy controls took part. Participants completed walking and cognitive tasks under single- and dual-task conditions.

Results: Compared to healthy controls, MS participants showed greater decrements in performance under dual-task conditions in cognitive task performance, walking speed and swing time variability. In the MS group, the degree of decrement under dual-task conditions was related to levels of fatigue, a measure of general cognitive functioning and self-reported everyday cognitive errors, but not to measures of disease severity or duration.

Conclusions: Difficulty with walking and talking in MS may be a result of a divided attention deficit or of overloading of the working memory system, and further investigation is needed. We suggest that difficulty with walking and talking in MS may lead to practical problems in everyday life, including potentially increasing the risk of falls. Clinical tools to assess cognitive—motor dual-tasking ability are needed.

Key Words: attention • cognition • gait • memory • multiple sclerosis • nervous system disorders • neuropsychological tests

This version was published on October 1, 2009

Multiple Sclerosis, Vol. 15, No. 10, 1215-1227 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1352458509106712


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?