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Belasco Junior D.1, Rosa Brilhante de Moraes B.1, Maria Alvarenga Anti Pompeu S.1, Pompeu J.E.2
1Universidade Paulista, Physical Therapy, São Paulo, Brazil, 2Universidade de São Paulo, Physical Therapy, São Paulo, Brazil
Background: Parkinson´s disease causes loss of motor control automaticity and deficiencies in dual task performance. Functional tasks performed during daily living activities require walking while performing a cognitive or upper-extremity motor task. Therefore, it is not clear if the characteristics of the primary tasks can influence the loss of performance. Postural control is considered a more automatic function while upper extremity tasks require more attention to be performed. Our hypothesis is that tasks with less requirements of attention could be less influenced by dual task conditions.
Purpose: To verify the performance and pattern of prioritization of patients with Parkinson´s disease in two motor and cognitive dual tasks with different demands of attention: a sit-to-stand and an upper extremity task.
Methods: It is an experimental study in which it were assessed 20 patients with Parkinson´s disease (60.1± 10.4 years) on stages 1.5 to 3 (Hoehn and Yahr scale). Performance of patients on sit-to-stand (postural control task) and box and block test (upper extremity task) was assessed in single task and in dual task (in association with a verbal fluency task). Single and dual task performance were compared through one-way ANOVA. It was adopted the alfa of 0.05.
Results: It was verified loss of performance in both dual task conditions, during postural control and upper extremity task (p=0.002 and p=0.0001, respectively). The cost of verbal fluency was higher than the cost of upper extremity task (p 0.001) showing a prioritization of upper extremity task.
Conclusion(s): Patients with Parkinson disease showed worsening of performance in dual task and they prioritized the upper extremity task instead of verbal fluency. There was no prioritization between postural control and verbal fluency. These finds suggest that the nature of tasks can influence the prioritization in dual task.
Implications: Tasks with more attentive demandcould be more affected by dual task conditions in Parkinsons disease. These findings could explain the difficulty of patients in daily living activities that involve upper extremity in dual task condition.
Funding acknowledgements: None.
Topic: Neurology: Parkinson's disease
Ethics approval: The study was approved by the University Paulista Ethics Committee (641.783 CEP/ICS/UNIP).
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
