Dual task-related gait changes in patients with mild cognitive impairment

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) entails a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia. In MCI patients gait impairment, which increases the risk of falls and institutionalization, is an early motor sign. A dual-task (DT) paradigm might improve the observation of this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to investigate motor-cognitive interference in a sample of MCI patients and a group of matched healthy controls submitted to DT conditions. To this end, three different cognitive tasks were used: counting backwards, short story recall and a phonemic fluency task. Overall, the patients, compared with the healthy participants, performed worse on the cognitive tasks and showed some degree of gait impairment. In the DT conditions, both groups showed significant gait disruption independently of the concomitant cognitive task. As regards cognitive performance, counting backwards worsened during dual tasking, while short story recall improved in both groups. Overall, our results suggest that the use of a DT paradigm does not improve the early detection of MCI. Our findings of enhanced story recall during walking might have interesting implications for rehabilitation of memory function