Alterações no equilíbrio decorrentes da realização de tarefas duplas em idosos

Abstract

Demographic studies have shown a considerable growth of the elderly population in the world. The aging causes physiological changes, among them, changes in postural control.The ability to control the balance is a fundamental task to perform daily activities and maintain balance while performing dual tasks simultaneously, has been associated with adverse outcomes in the elderly such as falls. To identify elder´s risk of falls, functional tests have been realized and recent studies indicate that the balance assessment should include the ability to perform dual tasks due to the possibility that execution of cognitive or motor tasks concurrently interfere with the gait in postural control. The present study aims to evaluate the effect of performing dual tasks in the balance of the elderly dwelling community through a systematic literature review. A widely literature search was conducted in the databases PubMed (Medline), PEDro and BIREME to select studies that examine the relationship between dual tasks and elderly dwelling community´s balance, using as limits over the age of 60 years, articles in English, Spanish and published in the last two years. Of the 110 articles that have been found, only 14 articles were included in this review, six of them were observational studies and eight were experimental studies. The studies showed evidences of interference in dual tasks in elderly balance, and demonstrate beneficial effects of interventions that use this paradigm.