Watch Where You Are Walking: Visual Tasks in Dual-Task Gait Research Scoping Review

Dual-task paradigms are popular in gait research given their association with safe mobility, dynamic instability, and falls. These paradigms often are used to study the influence of cognitive and motor tasks on one another. Cognitive tasks requiring visual input may impose additional demands to the sensorimotor system as they may share cognitive and sensory resources with gait/balance tasks. This scoping review mapped the existing literature on the visual tasks utilized in dual-task gait experiments. A total of 1844 articles (with the initial search including gait and posture) from five databases (SCOPUS, PubMED, AgeLine, SportDiscus, and PsychInfo) were screened resulting in 107 articles selected for review. Visual Stroop (25%), reaction time tasks (14%), and tracking (3%) were most often used, however they varied in terms of presentation (e.g., phone, screen, virtual environment) and measurements (e.g., reaction time, error rate, task score). Gait tasks varied in complexity (e.g., overground walking, obstacle avoidance, stairs) as did reported motor outcome measures (e.g., gait speed, step width). Overall, our final analysis indicated that dependent variables were measured inconsistently with some studies reporting only one side of the dual-task (i.e., either the visual or the motor task). Moreover, only 40% of the reviewed articles reported both single and dual-task results for both motor and cognitive tasks. These methodological inconstancies make it challenging to draw conclusions on prioritization, trade-offs and dual-task cost during walking and highlight the need for careful consideration when interpreting /comparing findings within the dual-task gait literature.