Revealing language deficits following stroke: the cost of doing two things at once.
The costs of doing two things were assessed for a group of healthy older adults and older adults who were tested at least 6 months after a stroke. A baseline language sample was compared to language samples collected while the participants were performing concurrent motor tasks or selective ignoring tasks. Whereas the healthy older adults showed few costs due to the concurrent task demands, the language samples from the stroke survivors were disrupted by the demands of doing two things at once. The dual task measures reveal long-lasting effects of strokes that were not evident when stroke survivors were assessed using standard clinical tools.
Kemper
Susan
S
Gerontology Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA. skemper@ku.edu
McDowd
Joan
J
Pohl
Patricia
P
Herman
Ruth
R
Jackson
Susan
S
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications*; D013997:Time Factors; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology