Dual task performance in youth versus elderly

The main goal of this study was to investigate the impact of difficulty level of postural task on dual task performance in young and older adults. Methods & Materials: 20 young (20-30 years) and 20 elderly (65-70 years) participants were selected by non-probable sampling method. Postural tasks (standing with parallel feet on the hard and foam surface) and cognitive task retrieved via auditory reaction times were applied. Cognitive and postural task assigned once individually and once simultaneously. In the older group; comparison Consequence analysis of easy balance task performance in a single and dual mode, showed no significant differences (p>0/05), but difficult balance task performance in dual-mode revealed more significant differences in compare than to single mode in elderly group. In the youth group performance of single and dual tasks were not significantly different (p>0/05). Comparing the performance of dual tasks in young and elderly groups revealed, with performing difficult balance tasks, different between aforementioned groups were significantly different (p<0/05). Increasing difficulty postural task may improve the performance of postural task in compare to single and simple postural task in dual mode, due to arousal promotions which occurs in first mentioned task.