Effects of cognitive tasks on gait stability during stairs climbing

• Main Author: Ku, Kah Wee.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49374
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Stairs are so ancient that there are no records in the history books telling us when stairs were developed. The ascending and descending of stairs have always been part and parcel of life since the invention of stairs centuries ago. Many studies have been done separately on the prevention of falls during stairs climbing for the older adults and the interference between balance, gait and cognitive task performance among people. However, not many studies have been done to link up the two studies mentioned above to research on how cognitive task have an effect on the gait stability during the ascending and descending of stairs.The objective of this study is to conduct experiments to investigate the effects on gait stability during stairs climbing when they are subjected to a cognitive load and when without a cognitive load. In this study, 15 males and 15 females were invited to do two sets of experiment. This first experiment was done without cognitive task and the second one was with cognitive tasks.