Tucker Gamble

Health, Physical Education, and Recreation

Mentor: Sushma Alphonsa

The Role of Cognitive Load on Postural Stability in the Elderly

As humans age, a decline in cognitive abilities and postural control has been shown. This becomes a major problem to the seniors of our community. The cost of falls in elderly is an economic and health concern, however, the factors that influence falls is not fully understood.One such factor is cognitive load,however, the extent to which cognitive load influences postural control has not been clearly understood. Therefore, in this study we tested how changing cognitive load affects postural control.We used a mixed quasi-experimental design where 24 young (18-40 years) and 24 old adults(60-85 years)were recruited.Each subject participated in a series of n-back (0-back. 1-back, 2-back and 3-back) working memory tasks while standing blind folded with their feet together. Range of sway was used as the dependent variable for the postural control with tasks as within and groups as between subject’s factor. A multilevel modelling approach revealed a significant group x task interaction for the best fit model. In the young group, range was significantly different from 2-back, low-load and no-load task. In the old group,2-back was significantly different only from no-back.These results indicated a change in range with increasing load specifically at the 2-back task in both groups. The extent to which this change was different depended on the lower load tasks.However, we did not see the effect of increasing load between the groups. From this, we are able to conclude that working memory load affected the postural control system to the same yet slightly greater extent in the young compared to old.