Veterans And Collegiate Athletes Together (vcat): Dual-task Balance Performance And Functional Health Assessments Pre-exercise Intervention

Veteran’s experience elevated rates of functional limitations compared to age matched adults including clinical balance measures such as tandem gait (TG), which is a sensitive clinical balance measure when completing either Single-Task (ST) or Dual-Task (DT) parameters. Exercise interventions are known to be effective at improving balance across a wide spectrum of populations including veterans. PURPOSE: To assess TG dual task cost between midlife veteran’s and college athletes prior to the start of an exercise intervention. METHODS: We enrolled ten collegiate student-athletes (SA) (age: 22.6 + 1.4 y.o., HT: 178.3 + 4.1 cm, 80.3 + 6.0 kg) and eight veterans (V) (age: 53.1 + 6.1 y.o., HT: 176.2 + 6.5, WT: 92.2 + 19.5 kg). All participants self-reported active years in sport and/or military service and then completed four trials each of ST-TG and DT-TG with a working memory task. The dual task cost (DTC), representing worsening/slower TG time during the DT trials, was calculated with a negative score reflecting greater cost (worse performance). Participants completed all testing parameters at the pre-exercise intervention time point. Groups were compared using a linear regression for active years of military/sports participation and a one-way ANOVA for group versus ST-TG (s), DT-TG time (s), and DTC (%). RESULTS: There was a significant finding for active years and both ST-TG (F = 4.56, p = 0.05, B = 0.48) and DT-TG (F = 6.59, p = 0.02, B = 0.55) time at the pre-exercise intervention time point with more active years associated with increased TG time. However, DTC was not significantly related to active years (F = 0.08, p = 0.78, B = -0.07). There was no significant group differences for ST-TG (SA: 12.4 + 3.8 s, V: 14.5 + 4.8 s, p = 0.35, d = 0.49), DT-TG (SA: 14.2 + 3.5 s, V: 17.5 + 5.3 s, p = 0.15, d = 0.73), or DTC (SA: 16.6 + 17.6%, V: 22.8 + 17.4%, p = 0.35, d = 0.48) despite moderate to large effect sizes. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary findings suggest that there is a decreased performance (i.e., slower) for these tests when active years are increased (i.e., longer). The lack of group differences, despite moderate/large effect sizes, is likely due to limited enrollment; however, this data provides foundational information for post-intervention comparison. Supported by: Delaware Highmark BlueCross BlueShield