Article

Injurious falls associated with cell phone use during ambulation are increasingly
common. Studies examining texting while walking suggest this task alters the
attentional component of walking to the extent that safety may be compromised.
Here, we quantified the extent to which frontal plane dynamic stability while
walking was affected by the cognitive and physical demands of texting. Twenty
experienced texters performed four, 10-min treadmill walking tasks at a
self-selected velocity in random order: (1) normal walk (control), (2) walking
while verbally performing mathematical calculations (cognitive demand), (3)
walking while bimanually holding and looking directly at a phone (physical
demand), and (4) walking while texting continuous mathematical calculations
(cognitive and physical). We quantified the frontal plane minimum margin of
stability (MOSmin), a measure that considers the position and normalized velocity
of the center of mass with respect to the lateral border of the base of support
was calculated over each 10-min walking period. Compared to the normal walking
condition, the texting and phone holding conditions resulted in a small but
significant (6%) increase in MOSmin (p=0.005 and 0.026, respectively). Compared
to normal walking, the effect of performing mathematical calculations on MOSmin
was not significant (p=0.80). These results suggest that frontal plane stability
of experienced texters during controlled treadmill walking conditions can be
affected by the physical, but not the cognitive demand of texting. This may
represent a compensatory mechanism by the CNS to ensure stability in the event of
an unexpected disturbance.
CI - Copyright (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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