Poster Session 02 Program Schedule
02/15/2024
08:00 am - 09:15 am
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)
Poster Session 02: Aging | MCI | Neurodegenerative Disease - PART 1
Final Abstract #35
The Effects of Dual-tasking on Discourse Level Verb Production in Parkinson’s Disease
Hyejin Park, The University of Mississippi, Oxford, United States
Audrey Hazamy, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, United States
Lori Altmann, The University of Florida, Gainesville, United States
Category: Movement and Movement Disorders
Keyword 1: Parkinson's disease
Keyword 2: language
Objective:
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by reduced dopamine innervation in the nigrostriatal tract, causing dysfunction of basal ganglia-frontal motor region circuitry. While PD is typified by overt motor symptoms, research also suggests language impairment may impact processing and production of verbs. Most studies of verb production in PD emphasize words and sentences, while explorations of discourse are largely nonexistent. Moreover, dual-tasking, or doing two tasks simultaneously, is an everyday occurrence (e.g., walking and talking), yet little is known about how dual-tasking may impact verb production in people with PD (pwPD). Thus, the current pilot study explored the impact of dual-tasking on verb production during discourse in PD.
Participants and Methods:
As part of a larger study, 10 pwPD and 10 healthy older adults (HOAs) provided 3-minute discourse samples under single- and dual-task (i.e., stationary cycling) conditions. Discourse samples were transcribed and parsed into t-units. Verbs classified as either stative (cognitive verbs focusing on mental states and mental actions, e.g., think) or total action verbs. Action verbs were further divided into general action (dynamic verbs with a poorly defined motor component, e.g., begin) or high action (verbs with referring to specific bodily movements, e.g., kick). The dependent variable was the number of verbs of each type per t-unit.
Results:
A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted with Group as the between-subjects factor and the within-subject factors Task (single vs. dual) and Verb Type (stative vs. total action). All participants produced fewer stative than total action verbs, and pwPD produced fewer verbs/t-unit overall than HOAs. To examine differences between action verb types, a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted with Group as the between-subjects and Task (single vs. dual) and Action Type (general vs. high) as the within-subject factors. Results revealed that all participants produced more general action than high action verbs and that individuals with PD produced fewer action verbs than HOAs. Interactions revealed that pwPD and HOAs produced similar numbers of high action verbs, but pwPD produced fewer general action verbs. Both groups produced fewer general action and more high action verbs in the dual-task than the single-task.
Conclusions:
This study supports and extends the literature on verb deficits in pwPD by documenting impaired production of verbs overall as well as action verbs during discourse. Fewer verbs per utterance in pwPD indicates limited sentence complexity in discourse. Also, the results demonstrate that cycling differentially affects the type of verbs produced. That is, cycling interfered with general action verb production (i.e., dual-task cost), but facilitated high action verb production in both pwPD and HOAs. Thus, motor cortices activated by cycling exercise may facilitate production of verbs with semantic features directly referencing bodily movement, but not other verb types. Results suggest potential therapeutic effects of cycling on language production in PD. Future studies with a larger sample size to support this hypothesis are underway.
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