Avaliação da interferência imediata após intervenção com dupla tarefa em idosos

Abstract

Introduction: With aging, there is a decline in the adaptive responses necessary to perform daily activities, thus increasing susceptibility to diseases and functional limitations. Cognitive motor interference is the simultaneous performance of a motor task and a cognitive one. However, despite the vast literature in the area, there are no types of tasks and established duration that shows the immediate effects for this training. Objective: To investigate the immediate interference of an intervention proposal with different dual cognitive-motor and motor-motor tasks on the balance of the elderly. Methods: Eight questionnaires / tests were used, besides the evaluation in the force platform, the subjects were divided by randomization into two groups, one group was submitted to a single intervention proposal with Simple Tasks (TS) and the other with Double Task (DT) after the intervention were reassessed. Results: We evaluated 30 elderly people who were distributed between two groups. Regarding the sociodemographic data, motor evaluation, cognitive performance and self report of difficulty for two tasks, there was no difference between the groups. Compared to the simple test, there was an increase in the time of accomplishment of the figure-of-eight walking (F8W) motor and cognitive and Timed and Go (TUG) cognitive tests. After the intervention the DT group maintained its performance in the tests and presented improvement in the cognitive performance of the activities of semantic fluency, calculation and figures during the posturography, whereas the TS group demanded more time for execution of the simple and motor TUG and presented greater oscillation in postural control in the condition of open eyes, semantic fluency and figures, without increase in the number of hits. Conclusions: The secondary tasks caused an increase in the time in the performance of the functional tests, except for the motor TUG. Immediately after the intervention, the performance in the DT group tests was superior to the TS group, the number of correct answers was similar. In the posturographic evaluation, there was improvement of the cognitive performance for the DT group, whereas the TS group presented greater oscillation for some activities, without improvement in their cognitive performance. There was no difference between the groups regarding the self report of the frequency of difficulty to perform double task.