The "Stroop Walking Task": An innovative dual-task for the early detection of executive function impairment

Aims of the study. - To evaluate a dual-task named the "Stroop Walking Task", which is similar to the task of making a decision of whether to cross a street based on a pedestrian traffic light. Patients and methods. - Fifty-one subjects (15 young adults, 21 subjectively healthy old subjects and 15 old subjects with mild cognitive impairment) had to respond to a visual signal (pictogram) with an appropriate motor response (walk or stop). We used an electronic walkway system to record the gait parameters and performed a cluster analysis on the obtained data. Results. - This dual-task enables the early detection of executive function impairment with 89% sensitivity and 87% specificity. Conclusion. - The use of a dual-task that is inspired by an everyday event as an evaluation tool seems to facilitate the detection of ageing subjects' cognitive impairment, which is not detectable with traditional psychometric tests. (C) 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.