Infl uence of a dual task while stepping over an obstacle in the fall-experienced elderly people

Abstract

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of a dual-task on movements of stepping over an obstacle by elderly people who had a fall experience in the past year. [Subjects] Subjects were 7 people who had a history of falls and 22 people who had no history of falls in the past year. [Methods] Subjects were divided into fallers group while subjects performed and nonfallers group by based on interview results. We measured toe clearance the single and dual tasks. The single task was a solitary motor task. The dual task consisted of a motor task and a concurrent cognitive task. The motor task was stepping over an obstacle during comfortable gait, and the cognitive task was the serial subtraction of seven from 100. [Results] Two-way ANOVA showed that toe-obstacle distance had a significant interaction effect. [Conclusion] These results suggest that fallers and non-fallers may have different strategies for stepping over an obstacle.