Walking and Thinking - Brain Activity During Complex Walking in Aging and Parkinson's Disease

Walking and Thinking - Brain Activity During Complex Walking in Aging and Parkinson's Disease (Part of the ParkMOVE Trial)

Every-day life means being part of a complex environment and performing complex tasks that usually involve a combination of motor and cognitive skills. However, the process of aging or the sequelae of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD) compromises motor-cognitive interaction necessary for an independent lifestyle. While motor-cognitive performance has been identified as an important goal for sustained health across different clinical populations, little is known about underlying brain function leading to these difficulties and how to best target these motor-cognitive difficulties in the context of rehabilitation and exercise interventions.

The challenge of improving treatments of motor-cognitive difficulties (such as dual-tasking and navigation) is daunting, and an important step is arriving at a method that accurately portrays these impairments in an ecological valid state. The investigators aim therefore to explore brain function during complex walking in healthy and PD by investigating the effects of age and neurological disease on motor-cognitive performance and its neural correlates during three conditions of complex walking (dual-task walking, navigation and a combination of both) using non-invasive measures of brain activity (functional near infrared spectrometry, fNIRS) and advanced gait analysis in real time in young, older healthy adults and people with PD.

Healthy young:

Inclusion criteria:

-18 to 50 years

Exclusion criteria:

• Disease or condition that affects cognition, gait or balance.
• Severe hearing or visual impairments that affects participation in the assessments

Healthy elderly:

Inclusion criteria:

• ≥60 years of age,
• 23 or more on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)

Exclusion criteria:

• Disease or condition that affects gait or balance.
• Severe hearing or visual impairments that affects participation in the assessments

Parkinson cohort:

Inclusion criteria:

• ≥60 years of age
• a clinical diagnosis of PD≤6 months prior to enrollment
• with the ability to walk without a mobility device for ≤5 minutes continuously.

Exclusion criteria:

• People with speech difficulties (e.g. aphasia)
• cognitive difficulties affecting the ability to understand and/or follow verbal/written - instructions
• severe freezing of gait
• Severe hearing or visual impairments that affects participation in the assessments
• Other neurological diseases
• Other disease that can affect gait or balance.