Dual task in dwelling-elder women: analysis of the Timed Up and Go between fallers and non fallers

• Autor(es): Parentoni,Adriana Netto ; Lustosa,Lygia Paccini ; Zambaldi,Bárbara Oliveira ; Cavalieri,Letícia Soares ; Luiz,Nayara Campos ; Guedes,Rita de Cássia
• Data: 2012
• Origem: Oasisbr
• Assunto(s): Frail elderly, postural balance, women.
• Tipo de Documento: Artigo científico
• Idioma: Inglês

Descrição

OBJECTIVE: Evaluating the functional performance during the accomplishment of Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, first in an isolated way, then associated with motor dual task, and after associated with cognitive dual task in order to compare elderlies with fall history, no fall history and those ones with "cadentis tremble".
METHODS: Elderly women from the community, with no distinction of race and social class participated of this study. The ones with cognitive alterations (Meem), dependent march, visual alterations, not compensated hearing, acute muscle-skeletal pain, use of medications that interfere on the balance were excluded. All of them accomplished the TUG, TUG associated with carrying a complete glass of water (motor task), TUG associated with saying animal names (cognitive task). The comparison between groups was made through ANOVA (α = 5%).
RESULTS: Thirty-six community elderlies (70.17 ± 6.25 years) participated of this study: six of them were classified as fallers, twenty as non fallers and ten with presence of "cadenti tremble" presence. When compared the three groups, in the three different moments of the test, there was not any statistic difference (p> 0.05). In the intra-group comparison, during the three moments of the test, it was observed a statistic difference on the fallers group, being this difference between the simple TUG and the cognitive TUG (p = 0.01). Other analysis were not significant enough.
CONCLUSION: Faller elders, non fallers and the ones with the "cadenti tremble" presence were not different in relation to functional performance. Faller elderlies showed a worse performance on the cognitive TUG when compared to the simple TUG, suggesting the necessity of a specific training.