Assessment of dual-tasking during a dynamic balance task using a smartphone app: a pilot study.
Rania Almajid, Rahul Goel
PMID 35221514WHAT IT FOUND
A smartphone app detected balance changes during dual-task walking in healthy adults.
However, the app's own stopwatch function failed to record accurate times for these short tests, meaning clinicians cannot rely on the phone's timing feature alone for this assessment.
Key findings
01The smartphone app's iTUG score significantly decreased when participants walked while performing mental tasks, indicating it can detect motor performance changes.
02The total time recorded by the smartphone app did not differ significantly between single-task and dual-task conditions, unlike the manual stopwatch and wearable sensor.
03The app frequently failed to stop recording when participants sat down, requiring several trials to be repeated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was a pilot with only 20 healthy, young-to-middle-aged adults (mean age 38.3), so results may not apply to older adults or those with actual balance disorders. The smartphone app failed to stop timing correctly in several trials, compromising the reliability of its time-based data. The sample had high educational levels (50% graduate degrees) and was mostly native English speakers, which may have minimized the impact of the cognitive tasks compared to a more diverse clinical population.
Declared interests
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the smartphone app is a valid replacement for a stopwatch in all contexts. While the app's composite score detected balance issues, its raw time measurements were statistically indistinguishable across conditions and prone to stopping errors, meaning the timing feature itself failed to capture the very deficits the study was testing for.