Bastos Tavares L1, Azevedo da Costa Cavalcanti F2, Fagundes de Sousa I2, Rodrigues Soares Menezes KV2, Mansur Yanu K2
1Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Physiotherapy Department, Natal, Brazil, 2Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil
Background: Physical, cognitive and behavioral alterations of aging predispose older people to falls and recent findings associate this fact with dual task activities, which are characterized by cognitive/motor requirement of the nervous system. Thus, knowing that brain changes are characteristic of aging, brain mapping during dual task activities becomes relevant, since intervention proposals can stimulate specific brain areas and help prevent falls and minimize the impacts from these episodes.
Purpose: The objective of this study was to perform brain mapping in older adults during the performance of two dual task activities with different complexities.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study at a University Hospital in Brazil with 30 older adults aged 65-75 years. We used the EEG Emotiv EPOC® for the brain mapping, and the functional ambulation test for the dual task consisting of parts A and B. In A, the subject should follow a sequence of numbers by walking, and in part B, an alternating sequence of numbers and letters. To analyze the dual task performance, we consider the time in conducting both parts, as well as the possible errors. These data were tabulated and analyzed in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The EEG data was subjected to a time normalization totaling 20 seconds of analysis for each subject. Next, the data were processed to remove the noise, thereby eliminating 17 subjects, totaling 13 subjects in the study. Thus, the largest common signal to the 14 channels of the evaluated subjects was found. Finally, the signal normalization was done through the Zscore, then mapping of the brain areas and descriptive analysis.
Results: The mean age was 70.85; ± 3.26 years. Part "B" of the task required a longer execution time in seconds (248.21 ± 138.34) when compared to "A" (127.70 ± 95.47) (p = 0.001), and caused more errors (2.38 ± 2.02) when compared to "A" (0.85; ± 1.77) (p = 0.01). Brain mapping showed more activation in the left hemisphere during part "A" and AF3, F8, FC5, T7 and O1 areas were more activated; while in part "B", AF3, AF4, F7 and F8, T8, P8 and O1 areas, and the right hemisphere were more activated. This means in addition to activating the areas related to attention, motor planning, movement execution, auditory cortex and visual cortex in part "A", performing part "B" also activated the somatosensory cortex, responsible for multisensory integration.
Conclusion(s): Part "B" of the task proved to be more complex in both the execution time and by the greater tendency to error. Brain mapping reinforces this greater complexity by activating the cerebral hemisphere D, characterizing learning and more activated brain areas, justifying a greater neural effort.
Implications: Tasks with greater cognitive-motor complexity lead to greater cerebral demand, with emphasis on multisensory areas, thus suggesting inserting interventions with distinct sensory stimuli in order to prevent fall episodes in older adults during dual task activities, and consequently to improve their quality of life.
Keywords: Older adults, Dual task, EEG
Funding acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte and the Onofre Lopes University Hospital.
Purpose: The objective of this study was to perform brain mapping in older adults during the performance of two dual task activities with different complexities.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study at a University Hospital in Brazil with 30 older adults aged 65-75 years. We used the EEG Emotiv EPOC® for the brain mapping, and the functional ambulation test for the dual task consisting of parts A and B. In A, the subject should follow a sequence of numbers by walking, and in part B, an alternating sequence of numbers and letters. To analyze the dual task performance, we consider the time in conducting both parts, as well as the possible errors. These data were tabulated and analyzed in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The EEG data was subjected to a time normalization totaling 20 seconds of analysis for each subject. Next, the data were processed to remove the noise, thereby eliminating 17 subjects, totaling 13 subjects in the study. Thus, the largest common signal to the 14 channels of the evaluated subjects was found. Finally, the signal normalization was done through the Zscore, then mapping of the brain areas and descriptive analysis.
Results: The mean age was 70.85; ± 3.26 years. Part "B" of the task required a longer execution time in seconds (248.21 ± 138.34) when compared to "A" (127.70 ± 95.47) (p = 0.001), and caused more errors (2.38 ± 2.02) when compared to "A" (0.85; ± 1.77) (p = 0.01). Brain mapping showed more activation in the left hemisphere during part "A" and AF3, F8, FC5, T7 and O1 areas were more activated; while in part "B", AF3, AF4, F7 and F8, T8, P8 and O1 areas, and the right hemisphere were more activated. This means in addition to activating the areas related to attention, motor planning, movement execution, auditory cortex and visual cortex in part "A", performing part "B" also activated the somatosensory cortex, responsible for multisensory integration.
Conclusion(s): Part "B" of the task proved to be more complex in both the execution time and by the greater tendency to error. Brain mapping reinforces this greater complexity by activating the cerebral hemisphere D, characterizing learning and more activated brain areas, justifying a greater neural effort.
Implications: Tasks with greater cognitive-motor complexity lead to greater cerebral demand, with emphasis on multisensory areas, thus suggesting inserting interventions with distinct sensory stimuli in order to prevent fall episodes in older adults during dual task activities, and consequently to improve their quality of life.
Keywords: Older adults, Dual task, EEG
Funding acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte and the Onofre Lopes University Hospital.
Topic: Older people; Older people
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: Onofre Lopes University Hospital
Ethics committee: Research Ethics Committee of the Onofre Lopes University Hospital
Ethics number: no. 1,946,317 of 24/02/2017.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
