Research for studying attention and gait stability has suggested the process of recovering gait stability requires attentional resources, but the specific effects of performing a secondary task on stability during obstacle avoidance are not known. While recent research has begun to explore age-related changes in the ability of older adults to perform balance tasks when simultaneously performing a secondary task, research has suffered from limitations regarding the mechanisms underlying the problems that older adults experience in the dual-task situations. Three possible attentional mechanisms contributing to limitations in dual-task performance were examined (reduced general attentional capacity vs. a true dual-task performance deficit, difficulties with maintaining posture requiring attentional resources, and inability to allocate attention). Four studies were conducted and concluded that balance-impaired older adults were unable to perform two tasks efficiently. Ability to allocate...
