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. 2023 Feb 20:5:1077362.
doi: 10.3389/fspor.2023.1077362. eCollection 2023.

Dual-tasking interference is exacerbated outdoors: A pilot study

Rania Almajid  1   2 , Kwadwo O Appiah-Kubi  3 , Daniel Cipriani  2 , Rahul Goel  4
Affiliations

Dual-tasking interference is exacerbated outdoors: A pilot study

Rania Almajid et al. Front Sports Act Living. .

Abstract

Introduction: Walking while texting can create gait disturbances that may increase fall risk, especially in outdoors environment. To date, no study has quantified the effect of texting on motor behavior using different dynamic tasks in outdoor environments. We aimed to explore the impact of texting on dynamic tasks in indoor and outdoor environments.

Methods: Twenty participants (age 38.3 ± 12.5 years, 12 F) had a Delsys inertial sensor fixed on their back and completed walk, turn, sit-to-stand, and stand-to-sit subtasks with and without texting in both indoor and outdoor environments.

Results: While there was no difference in texting accuracy (p = 0.3), there was a higher dual-tasking cost in walking time with texting outdoors than indoors (p = 0.008).

Discussion: Dual tasking has a greater impact on walking time outdoors compared to an indoor environment. Our findings highlight the importance of patient education concerning dual-tasking and pedestrian safety in clinical settings.

Keywords: dual-tasking; environment; multitasking behavior; posture; texting.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) The indoor laboratory and outdoor environments experimental setting and (B) The timed up and go test and its four subtasks (sit-to-stand, walk, turn, and stand-to-sit).
Figure 2
Figure 2
An example of a filtered signal taken from the lumbar sensor showing the pitch (purple) and yaw (blue) angular velocity signals (deg/sec) from a participant while completing the TUG test.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The dual-tasking cost (DTC) of the (A) sit-to-stand time, walk time, turn time, and stand-to-sit time and (B) gait speed and step count in indoor (in red color) and outdoor (in blue color) environments while texting. The box plot depicts the median values of DTCs. To note, (+ve) indicates an improvement in dual-tasking performance, and (−ve) indicates a decline in dual-tasking performance.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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