Resume: The ability to walk and talk with two tasks begins to decline around age 55. This decline is due to changes in cognition and underlying brain function rather than physical changes associated with aging.
Source: Hebrew SeniorLife Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research
Walking is a complex task that is usually performed while performing other tasks, such as talking, reading gestures, or making decisions.
For most, such “dual-tasking” after age 65 impairs walking performance and may even cause unsteadiness. Intriguingly, older adults who are more likely to experience dual tasks are at greater risk for adverse health outcomes, including both falls and dementia.
A new research study published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity has reported that the ability to double-task while walking begins to decline at age 55, up to a decade before “old age” as traditionally defined by the 65-year threshold.
In addition, this decrease in the ability to walk and talk at the same time was found not to be caused by changes in physical function, but instead by changes in cognition and underlying brain function.
“Our results suggest that poor dual task gait performance in middle age may be an indicator of accelerated brain aging or an otherwise pre-symptomatic neurodegenerative disorder,” said lead co-author Junhong Zhou, Ph.D., assistant scientist I, Hinda and the Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research.
“We assessed a large number of individuals between the ages of 40 and 64 participating in a study called the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative (BBHI). We saw that the ability to walk under normal, quiet conditions remained relatively stable in this age group.
“But even in this relatively healthy cohort, when we asked participants to walk and simultaneously perform a mental arithmetic task, we were able to observe subtle but important changes in walking from the middle of the sixth decade of life.”
“This means that a simple test of two-task walking, which examines the brain’s ability to perform two tasks at the same time, may detect early, age-related changes in brain function that may increase the risk of developing dementia later in life. mean.” Zhou said.
The paper grew out of a unique collaboration between researchers at Hebrew SeniorLife’s Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute in Boston and the Guttmann Institut in Barcelona, Spain, which runs the population-based Barcelona Brain Health Initiative (BBHI).
The BBHI’s principal investigator is Prof. David Batres-Faz from the University of Barcelona, and Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, the medical director of the Deanna and Sidney Wolk Center for Memory Health, and a senior scientist at Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, and who serves as the scientific director of the BBHI.
“Compared to leisurely walking, walking under dual-task conditions adds stress to the motor control system because the two tasks (walking and mental arithmetic, for example) must compete for shared resources in the brain. What we believe is that the ability to cope with this stress and continue to perform adequately in both tasks is a critical brain function that often declines in old age.
“Our research is important because it found that changes in this type of brain resilience occur much earlier than previously believed,” Zhou said.
“Now we have a clearer picture of age-related changes in gait control and how it relates to cognitive and brain health,” Zhou said.
“Importantly, however, while we found that dual task walking tended to decrease with age across the entire cohort, not everyone in the study fit this description.”
“For example, we saw that some of the participants older than 60 years who took the dual task test, just like participants aged 50 or even younger. This means that walking performance in dual task walking does not necessarily decline as we age, and that some individuals appear to be more resilient to the effects of aging.
“We hope that our study will stimulate future research efforts to discover lifestyle and other modifiable factors supporting the maintenance of dual task performance into old age, as well as interventions targeting these factors.”
Findings
Between May 5, 2018 and July 7, 2020, 996 people were recruited into the BBHI study, with 640 participants completing gait and cognitive assessments during this time (average of 24 days). [SD 34] between first and second visit) and were included in the analysis (342 men and 298 women). Nonlinear associations were observed between age and dual task performance.
From the age of 54, the DBK is according to fitting time (β=0 27 [95% CI 0·11 to 0·36]; p<0 0001) and step time variability (0 24 [0·08 to 0·32]; p=0 0006) increased with increasing age. In subjects 54 years or older, decreased global cognitive function correlated with increased DTC to fitting time (β=–0 27 [–0·38 to –0·11]; p=0 0006) and increased DTC to step time variability (β=–0 19 [–0·28 to –0·08]; p=0·0002).
About this brain aging research news
Author: Press Office
Source: Hebrew SeniorLife Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research
Contact: Press Service – Hebrew SeniorLife Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research
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Original research: Open access.
“The age-related contribution of cognitive function to two-task walking in middle-aged adults in Spain: observations from a population study” by Junhong Zhou et al. Lancet Healthy Longevity
Abstract
The age-related contribution of cognitive function to two-task walking in middle-aged adults in Spain: observations from a population study
Background
Poor dual-task gait performance is associated with a risk of falls and cognitive decline in adults aged 65 or older. When and why dual-task walking performance begins to deteriorate is not known. This study aimed to characterize the relationships between age, two-task gait, and cognitive function in middle age (i.e., 40-64 years of age).
methods
We performed a secondary analysis of data from community-dwelling adults aged 40-64 who participated in the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative (BBHI) Study, an ongoing longitudinal cohort study in Barcelona, Spain. Participants were eligible if they could walk independently without assistance and had completed assessments of both gait and cognition at the time of analysis and were ineligible if they could not understand the study protocol, had clinically diagnosed neurological or psychiatric conditions, were cognitively impaired or had lower extremity pain, osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis that could cause abnormal gait. The stride time and stride time variability were measured under single-task (i.e., walking alone) and dual-task (i.e., walking while performing serial subtractions). Dual-task cost (DTC; the percentage increase in walking outcomes from single-task to dual-task conditions) for each walking outcome was calculated and used as the primary measure in analyses. Global cognitive function and composite scores of five cognitive domains were derived from neuropsychological testing. We used locally estimated scatterplot smoothing to characterize the relationship between age and dual task gait, and structural equation modeling to determine whether cognitive function mediated the association between perceived biological age and dual task.
Findings
Between May 5, 2018 and July 7, 2020, 996 people were recruited into the BBHI study, with 640 participants completing gait and cognitive assessments during this time (average of 24 days). [SD 34] between first and second visit) and were included in our analysis (342 men and 298 women). Nonlinear associations were observed between age and dual task performance. From the age of 54, the DBK is according to fitting time (β=0 27 [95% CI 0·11 to 0·36]; p<0 0001) and step time variability (0 24 [0·08 to 0·32]; p=0 0006) increased with increasing age. In subjects 54 years or older, decreased global cognitive function correlated with increased DTC to fitting time (β=–0 27 [–0·38 to –0·11]; p=0 0006) and increased DTC to step time variability (β=–0 19 [–0·28 to –0·08]; p=0·0002).
Interpretation
Walking performance in dual tasking begins to deteriorate in the sixth decade of life and thereafter interindividual variation in cognition explains a substantial part of dual task performance.
financing
Foundation La Caixa, Institut Guttmann and Fundació Abertis.