Visual reaction time (RT) was measured in 10 older men (mean age, 71.1 years) and gender-matched controls (mean age, 26.3 years) when standing (single task) and when walking on a motor-driven treadmill (dual task). There were 90 quasi-randomly presented trials over 15 min in each condition. Longer mean and median RTs were observed in the dual task compared to the single task. Older males had si...

OBJECTIVE Relatively little research has directly evaluated the schematic nature of illness representations proposed by the common sense model of illness. Four studies tested the hypothesis that illness schema activation leads directly and automatically to behavioral manifestations of illness. METHOD Study 1 was a survey (N = 970) that evaluated the proposition that the mental representation ...

About 54% of pedestrians killed on French roads are over 60 years old (ONISR, 2012), whereas this age group represents less than 24% of the French population (INSEE, 2013). Factors such as slowdown of decision-making, reduction of walking speed, and difficulty of adopting sufficient safety margins can explain that over-representation of older pedestrians in traffic accidents (e.g. Lobjois & Cav...

Objective Barefoot technology shoes are becoming increasingly popular, yet modifications are still needed. The present study aims to gain valuable insights by comparing barefoot walking to neutral shoe walking in a healthy youth population. Methods 28 healthy university students (22 females and 6 males) were recruited to walk on a 10-meter walkway both barefoot and in neutral running shoes at...

The purpose of the current study is to compare the effects of light physical activity to sedentary behavior on cognitive task performance and meta-cognitive responses. Thirty-eight undergraduate students participated in the study. The participants used a stationary bicycle with a desk top and a traditional desk while completing two complex cognitive tasks and measures of affect, motivation, mor...

BACKGROUND Aging brings about a number of degenerative changes in the body. The aging process in-creases its pace after the menopause. Women notice functional limitations in their daily lives, including mobility problems, as early as in their forties. Gait is one of the most reliable parameters reflecting the body's overall function and condition. The aim of this study was to determine the effe...

There is ample evidence that physical and cognitive performance are related, but the results of studies investigating this relationship show great variability. Both physical performance and cognitive performance are constructs consisting of several subdomains, but it is presently unknown if the relationship between physical and cognitive performance depends on subdomain of either construct and ...

BACKGROUND In this epidemiological study we described the characteristics of spatio-temporal gait parameters among a representative, population-based sample of 890 community-dwelling people aged 65 to 90 years. In addition, we investigated the associations between certain gait parameters and a history of falls in study participants. METHODS In descriptive analyses spatio-temporal gait paramet...

Using data from eight UK cohorts participating in the Healthy Ageing across the Life Course (HALCyon) research programme, with ages at physical capability assessment ranging from 50 to 90+ years, we harmonised data on objective measures of physical capability (i.e. grip strength, chair rising ability, walking speed, timed get up and go, and standing balance performance) and investigated the cro...

This paper discusses the experimental evaluation of locationbased services, such as mobile guides, in the field. It identifies advantages and disadvantages of using such field experiments over and against other evaluation methods. We then describe a specific method of running field experiments that we have found to be useful. The use of various evaluation measures, tools and scales is then disc...