Significance:
Everyday life involves various situations in which a postural task like walking is performed concurrently with a second task such as talking on the phone. In general, these situations are considered unproblematic and do not arise a risk of falling. However, when balance abilities or attentional resources are limited dual tasking might become more challenging, leading to decrease in performance or increase in risk of fall. Studies have shown that late effects of cancer treatment such as peripheral neuropathy can lead to difficulty in maintain upright posture in childhood cancer survivors. Also because of negative effects of chemotherapy or radiation on developing brain of children, this population might suffer from cognitive problems …show more content…
As a representation of dynamic balance we will use G walk system to calculate temporal and spatial walking gait characteristics, including data on velocity (cm/s), cadence (steps/min), step length (cm), base of support (cm), and time in double support (percent of the cycle). As a measure of cognitive test we will use a modified version of digit backward test which includes alpha numeric sequences.
20 non central nervous system childhood cancer survivors age between 8-18 who are at least 1 year post treatment will constitute study group. To control for confounding factors, 20 age and sex matched healthy children will be tested.
The testing procedures will take less than 30 minutes and all the participants will receive a 10 $ gift card as a compensation for their time.
Dual tasking is common in everyday life, therefore understanding to what extend limitation in balance can impact cancer survivors performance in a dual task situation is important. This information can help clinicians in deciding upon the best evaluation approaches and identifying the hidden functional problems. Knowing these problems and addressing them with proper training and/or recommendations can lead to minimize the risk of
Everyday life involves various situations in which a postural task like walking is performed concurrently with a second task such as talking on the phone. In general, these situations are considered unproblematic and do not arise a risk of falling. However, when balance abilities or attentional resources are limited dual tasking might become more challenging, leading to decrease in performance or increase in risk of fall. Studies have shown that late effects of cancer treatment such as peripheral neuropathy can lead to difficulty in maintain upright posture in childhood cancer survivors. Also because of negative effects of chemotherapy or radiation on developing brain of children, this population might suffer from cognitive problems …show more content…
As a representation of dynamic balance we will use G walk system to calculate temporal and spatial walking gait characteristics, including data on velocity (cm/s), cadence (steps/min), step length (cm), base of support (cm), and time in double support (percent of the cycle). As a measure of cognitive test we will use a modified version of digit backward test which includes alpha numeric sequences.
20 non central nervous system childhood cancer survivors age between 8-18 who are at least 1 year post treatment will constitute study group. To control for confounding factors, 20 age and sex matched healthy children will be tested.
The testing procedures will take less than 30 minutes and all the participants will receive a 10 $ gift card as a compensation for their time.
Dual tasking is common in everyday life, therefore understanding to what extend limitation in balance can impact cancer survivors performance in a dual task situation is important. This information can help clinicians in deciding upon the best evaluation approaches and identifying the hidden functional problems. Knowing these problems and addressing them with proper training and/or recommendations can lead to minimize the risk of