Clinical Parkinsonism & Related Disorders · Nov 2026
Cognitive load and mobility: Within-session repeatability and preliminary group discrimination of a dual-task 10-Meter Walk Test with Stroop in Parkinson's disease
By Carter V, Heick J, Jain TK
Background Cognitive-motor interference during gait is commonly observed in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and may contribute to mobility limitations and increased fall risk. Traditional single-task gait measures may underestimate mobility limitations in complex environments. Objectives To examine whether integrating a visual Stroop task with the 10-Meter Walk Test (10MWT) differentiates walking performance between individuals with PD and healthy adults, and to evaluate the within-session repeatability of the Stroop-enhanced 10MWT. Methods Twenty participants with Parkinson's disease (PwP), 19 healthy older adults, and 19 healthy young adults were included in the complete-case walking analyses involving the 10MWT, Standing Stroop, and Stroop-enhanced 10MWT. Participants with PD additionally completed the TUG-cognitive. Completion times, Stroop errors, and gait dual-task costs were analyzed. Group comparisons were supplemented by sensitivity analyses, and within-session repeatability was evaluated using intraclass correlation coefficients from three trials. Results: Single-task 10MWT completion times did not differ significantly among groups (p = .211). During the Stroop-enhanced 10MWT, PwP demonstrated longer completion times than healthy older adults (13.24 ± 4.84 vs. 10.34 ± 2.49 s; unadjusted p = .025) and more Stroop errors (0.85 ± 0.72 vs. 0.37 ± 0.43 errors per trial; unadjusted p = .016). Although gait dual-task cost was numerically greater in PwP than in older adults (50.36 ± 34.26% vs. 34.61 ± 28.24%), the difference was not statistically significant (p = .125). The Stroop-enhanced 10MWT demonstrated excellent within-session repeatability (ICC[2,1] = 0.947). Conclusions The Stroop-enhanced 10MWT identified differences in dual-task walking performance between PwP and healthy older adults that were not observed during single-task walking. Its excellent within-session repeatability and preliminary ability to differentiate groups suggest potential utility for assessing cognitive-motor interference in PD. Further studies are needed to establish its validity, between-session reliability, and clinical applicability.