Older adults showed greater walking-speed costs when adding a mental task
A meta-analysis found an overall age difference, while uncertainty remains about how strongly that difference depends on the task.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Older adults showed a greater walking-speed cost when a cognitive task was added, on average, than younger adults. Task-specific results differed, but the abstract does not establish that verbal tasks reliably interfere more than arithmetic tasks. These findings describe performance during testing; they do not demonstrate that a rehabilitation approach improves mobility.
Study results varied substantially. The abstract reports no direct statistical comparison between task subgroups, so a significant result for verbal fluency and a nonsignificant result for subtraction cannot establish a difference between those tasks.
What researchers found
Hedges' g for age differences in walking-speed cost
Older versus younger adults during walking with a cognitive task, relative to walking alone. Test duration was not reported. The pooled age difference was statistically significant.
The tasks varied
The analysis compared walking alone with walking while doing a mental task. Most studies used repeated subtraction or word-generation tasks (verbal fluency), while attention monitoring and texting were less represented.
Reading the effect size
Hedges' g puts results from different studies on a shared scale. The authors describe the difference as small to medium; the negative sign means greater walking-speed costs in older adults. This is not a percentage slowdown.
The original publication
Verbal fluency dual-tasks show greater age-related cognitive-motor interference: a meta-analysis of walking performance.
Harrison K, Guzman KS, Peoples BM et al.
Exp Brain Res · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41045320
- Record checked
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