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Volume 7 Supplement 1

4th Congress of the International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics Community

  • Meeting abstract
  • Open Access

The effect of cognitive task on ankle movement variability in athletes with Functional Ankle Instability

  • 1,
  • 1, 2Email author,
  • 2,
  • 1 and
  • 1
Journal of Foot and Ankle Research20147 (Suppl 1) :A90

https://doi.org/10.1186/1757-1146-7-S1-A90

©  Tavakoli et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014

  • Published:

Keywords

  • Cognitive Load
  • Cognitive Task
  • Frontal Plane
  • Motion Capture
  • Stance Phase

Background

Gait has been generally viewed as a largely automated motor task, requiring minimal higher-level cognitive input. Increasing evidence, however, suggest that attention demanding cognitive tasks to disturb gait[1, 2]. Movement variability may influence joint stability and increase the risk of “giving way” at the ankle in individuals with functional ankle instability (FAI)[3]. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of dual-tasking on ankle movement variability in athletes with FAI.

Methods

21 athletes (age 25.57±4.77 years) with clinically diagnosed FAI were recruited. All participants completed 5 trials of normal walking and 5 trials of normal walking while performing a cognitive task. The cognitive task consisted of subtracting seven from a randomly selected number between 11 and 99 repeatedly whilst walking. Three dimensional rotations of the affected ankle (measured by an eight-camera motion capture system at 100 Hz) were calculated by visual3D during gait cycles. Between trials variability of ankle rotations time curves during stance phase and during 200ms before and after heel strike were calculated using the coefficient of multiple correlations (CMC) and intraclass correlation (ICC)

Results

The results indicate that mean CMC was decreased during dual task condition in the sagittal and frontal planes. This was statistically significant in frontal plane during 200ms before and after heel strike (p<0.05) (Table 1). There was reduction in ICC magnitude in dual-task condition compared to single task in 200ms before heel strike (Table 2).
Table 1

Mean CMC during different conditions and periods of time.

  

Single-Task

Dual-Task

200ms before and after HSa

Frontal plane

0.9529±0.029

0.9270±0.044 *

 

Sagittal plane

0.9505±0.042

0.9373±0.046

 

Transverse plane

0.8530±0.150

0.8539±0.140

HS-TOb

Frontal plane

0.9396±0.042

0.91150.092

 

Sagittal plane

0.9842±0.019

0.9825±0.022

 

Transverse plane

0.9228±0.092

0.9274±0.072

a Heel strike. b Toe off. * P <0.05

Table 2

ICC in 3planes during different conditions

  

Single-Task

Dual-Task

200ms before HS a

Frontal plane

0.964

0.960

 

Sagittal plane

0.943

0.710

 

Transverse plane

0.934

0.914

HS

Frontal plane

0.968

0.975

 

Sagittal plane

0.879

0.907

 

Transverse plane

0.756

0.908

200ms after HS

Frontal plane

0.958

0.909

 

Sagittal plane

0.950

0.949

 

Transverse plane

0.809

0.973

TO b

Frontal plane

0.911

0.930

 

Sagittal plane

0.882

0.898

 

Transverse plane

0.924

0.903

a Heel strike. b Toe off. * P <0.05

Conclusion

The athletes with FAI demonstrated greater ankle movement variability during dual task condition which may indicate diminished neuromotor control. Cognitive load may increase episodes of ankle instability in these athletes.

Declarations

Authors’ Affiliations

(1)
Musculoskeletal Research Centre, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran
(2)
Centre for Health Sciences Research, University of Salford, UK

References

  1. Abbud GA, Li KZ, DeMont RG: Attentional requirements of walking according to the gait phase and onset of auditory stimuli. Gait & posture. 2009, 30 (2): 227-32. 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2009.05.013.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
  2. Al-Yahya E, Dawes H, Smith L, Dennis A, Howells K, Cockburn J: Cognitive motor interference while walking: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews. 2011, 35 (3): 715-28. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.08.008.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
  3. Brown CN, Padua DA, Marshall SW, Guskiewicz KM: Variability of motion in individuals with mechanical or functional ankle instability during a stop jump maneuver. Clinical biomechanics. 2009, Bristol, Avon, 24 (9): 762-8. 10.1016/j.clinbiomech.2009.07.001.Google Scholar

Copyright

© Tavakoli et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

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Journal of Foot and Ankle Research

ISSN: 1757-1146