DUAL TASK PERFOR MANCE BETWEEN ADULTS AND ELDERLY POS T STROKE PATIENTS

Abstract

Objective: Studies that assessed motor performance comparing healthy adults and old, shown agerelated differences in several parameters. It is not known whether these differences remain evident when people are under stroke condition. Our aim was to describe clinical and functional characteristics and to compare a dual task performance between older and younger post stroke individuals. Methods: We evaluated hemiparetic patients with independent gait between August/2011 and August/2012. The following scales/tests were applied: NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS), Modified Barthel Index (mBI), Timed Up and Go Test (TUG) and TUG with cognitive task (TUGcog). X2, Fisher tests or Mann Whitney U test were used when appropriated. Results: Amongst 92 participants 54.3% were adults and 45.7% were elder adults. Adults and elder adults presented similar characteristics, although statistical difference was observed at instruction level (P = .01), hypertension (P= .02), verbal fluency (P < .01) and delta time for TUGcog (P < .01). Conclusion: Individuals post stroke in this study presented slightly clinical and functional differences, but it was possible to observe that older need more time to perform multitasking. Probably, age alone is not an important factor in differentiating independent stroke patients. However, postural instability, in elderly patients, should be evaluated more carefully taking into account the attentional demands, since dual task is used in many activities of daily life.