Preliminary investigation of the efficacy of clinically practical dual-task tests as a concussion assessment tool: a comparison of single-and dual-task tests on healthy young adults

Abstract

Objective: To develop Dual-Task tests using clinically practical physical and cognitive tasks. The effect of Dual-Task tests was investigated by comparing the outcome measures to that of Single-Task tests on healthy subjects. Method: 54 healthy participants were recruited. Testing involved Modified Balance Error Scoring System (mBESS) and three cognitive tasks [Backward Digit Recall (BDR), Serial Sevens (SS), and Auditory Pure Switch Task (APST)]. Repeated Measure Analysis of Variance, paired t-tests, Intraclass Correlation Coefficients were performed on SPSS v22.0 with an alpha level of p<0.05 Results: Total mBESS score increased under Dual-Task combination with SS compared to its Single-Task score (p=0.01). Accuracy for BDR, Digit Span for SS and APST showed significant decrease under Dual-Task task with single-leg stance on foam (p<0.05). Conclusions: These Dual-Task combinations had similar effects as shown in previous research and may show promise as part of developing a practical, clinically based Dual-Task test for assessing concussion.