title: Dual Task Performance May be a Better Measure of Cognitive Processing in Huntington's Disease than Traditional Attention Tests.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Past research has found cancellation tasks to be reliable markers of cognitive decline in Huntington's disease (HD).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to extend previous findings by adopting the use of a dual task paradigm that paired cancellation and auditory tasks.
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared performance in 14 early stage HD participants and 14 healthy controls. HD participants were further divided into groups with and without cognitive impairment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results suggested that HD participants were not slower or less accurate compared with controls; however, HD participants showed greater dual task interference in terms of speed. In addition, HD participants with cognitive impairment were slower and less accurate than HD participants with no cognitive impairment, and showed greater dual task interference in terms of speed and accuracy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that dual task measures may be a better measure of cognitive processing in HD compared with more traditional measures.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Eleftheria
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vaportzis
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Nellie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Georgiou-Karistianis
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Churchyard
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Julie C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Stout
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention allocation; Huntington’s disease; divided attention; dual task; visual search