Thesis Project Form

Daily activities like walking while talking on the phone exemplify motor-cognitive dual-tasking (MCDT), combining cognitive and motor tasks simultaneously. In such scenarios, involving both balance exercises and cognitive tasks, healthy subjects show a decline in both balance and cognitive performance. This effect is even amplified with advancing age, as studies show that postural control requires greater cognitive effort in older adults compared to younger ones. While the addition of a cognitive task to static balance tasks has been shown to impair postural control, less focus has been given to understanding its impact in dynamic balance situations under dual -task conditions. More specifically, potential variations in terms of balance when the subject is positioned on an unstable platform or when the platform moves in a way that induces perturbations to the patient, have not been investigated yet. Furthermore, a characterization of postural control under various dynamic dual-task conditions in both young and elderly subjects, with the aim of understanding the impact of aging on postural control in such scenarios, has never been performed.

The general objectives will be to:
- examine the variations observed in postural control by introducing a cognitive task in different static and dynamic balance contexts in both young and elderly subjects.
- assess the variations in motor and cognitive performance when performing a MCDT in the aforementioned groups, to understand the impact of the aging process.
More specifically, we will use hunova, a robotic medical device, which allows for assessing balance in both static and dynamic conditions. The device incorporates two robotic platforms (one positioned under the feet and the other beneath the seat) which can either be static or dynamic, an inertial sensor for evaluating trunk movements and a touchscreen display that enables users to interact with it.

The student will learn to:
- use a certified robotic medical device
- perform experiments with human participants
- administer cognitive evaluation tests
- perform data analysis on the postural control, cognitive and dual-tasking performance and the respective statistical analysis