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Contribution of Genetic and Environmental Factors to Individual Differences in Maximal Walking Speed With and Without Second Task in Older Women

¹ Department of Health Sciences, ² Finnish Centre for Interdisciplinary Gerontology, and ³ Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
⁴ Finnish Brain Research and Rehabilitation Center Neuron, Kuopio, Finland.
⁵ Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Finland.
⁶ Department of Mental Health, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland.

Address correspondence to Ms. Satu Pajala, Finnish Centre for Interdisciplinary Gerontology, P.O Box 35 (Viveca), FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla. E-mail: saarvone{at}sport.jyu.fi

Background. Among older people, distraction while walking may increase the risk of falls. Factors underlying individual differences in dual tasking are not fully understood. Our aim was to study the effect of a second task on maximal walking speed and to examine whether individual differences in walking speed measured with and without a second task are accounted for by genetic and environmental influences shared across tasks or specific to each task.

Methods. The data were collected from the 101 monozygotic and 116 dizygotic twin pairs aged 63–76 years recruited from the Finnish Twin Cohort. Maximal walking speed (MWS) over 10 m was measured on a laboratory corridor and timed with photocells. The test was repeated while subjects performed, first, a manual task (MWSmanual) and, second, a verbal task (MWSverbal).

Results. Mean walking speed without a simultaneous task was 1.72 m/s (standard deviation [SD] 0.33), with a manual task it was 1.52 m/s (SD 0.26), and with a verbal task it was 1.36 m/s (SD 0.27). Multivariate genetic analysis showed that an additive genetic factor in common accounted for 17% of individual differences in MWS, 19% in MWSmanual, and 12% in MWSverbal. In addition, MWSverbal had a genetic factor specific to it accounting for 10% of the variance. Shared environmental influences, common to all three traits, accounted for 39%, 27%, and 21% of the individual differences, respectively.

Conclusion. Approximately half of the individual differences in walking with or without another task were accounted for by genetic and nongenetic familial effects in common, and the rest of the variation was accounted for by unique environmental factors in common and factors specific to walking tests.