It's true that doing walk simultaneously with other tasks can be challenging, especially for the elderly.
After all, walking is a complex activity that involves motor coordination, balance and attention.
see more
Secret of youth? Researchers reveal how to reverse…
The "powers" of porridge: check out the benefits of oats in…
When seniors have to divide their attention between walking and doing other tasks such as talking, reading signs or making decisions, it can lead to cognitive overload.
A study was recently published in the journal Lancet Healthy Longevity which led to an intriguing discovery: the ability to perform dual tasks while walking begins to decline from age 55, a decade before what is generally considered the “advanced age” of 65 years.
Surprisingly, it was found that this difficulty in walking and talking simultaneously is not related to physical changes, but to cognitive and functional changes in the brain. Understand the full survey!
According to one of the researchers, Dr. Junhong Zhou of the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, study results indicate that Difficulty dual-tasking during midlife walking could be a sign of accelerated brain aging or a neurodegenerative condition pre-symptomatic.
Understand the full survey!
Walking: a direct connection to the brain
The study was the result of a unique collaboration between researchers from Instituto Hinda and Arthur Marcus at Hebrew Senior Life, in Boston, and the Guttmann Institute in Barcelona, Spain.
Prof. David Batres-Faz of the University of Barcelona is the BBHI principal investigator, while Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, medical director of the Deanna and Sidney Wolk Center for Memory Health and Senior Scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, serves as Scientific Director of the BBHI.
The study involved a comprehensive analysis of a large group of individuals aged between 40 and 64 who participated in the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative (BBHI), an ongoing study.
During the study, the researchers noticed that the ability to walk in normal, quiet conditions remained relatively constant among participants in this age group.
However, when participants were asked to perform a mental arithmetic task while walking, even at this In a generally healthy cohort, subtle but significant changes in gait were observed from the mid-sixties onwards. life.
As explained by Zhou, the researcher responsible for the study, a simple dual-task walking test, which assesses the ability of the brain from performing two tasks simultaneously, may be an indicator of early age-related changes in function brain.
These changes may be associated with a higher risk of developing dementia later in life.
According to Zhou, the ability to handle stress and maintain adequate performance in dual tasks is believed to be a crucial brain function that tends to decline as we age.
The study is considered important, as it revealed that changes in this brain resilience occur at much earlier stages than previously thought.
Lover of movies and series and everything that involves cinema. An active curious on the networks, always connected to information about the web.
