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The Pint Test
Authors:
GREENFIELD, E., Evans, J., EMSLIE, H. & WILSON, B.A.
Reference:
Brain Impairment, 7(2), 155
Year of publication:
2006
CBU number:
6377
Abstract:
After a brain injury (BI) many people have a problem with dual tasking (DT), which has serious repercussions on many aspects of their life, affecting activities of daily living, returning to work and leisure. There are few tools available to enable clinicians to assess DT performance. As part of the development of a new battery of tests of divided attention and DT (The DivA), we designed a test that has a high ecological validity and is sensitive to difficulties in combining cognitive and motor tasks. The Pint Test involves a primary condition walking 5-metre lengths for 2 minutes carrying a full glass of water (inside a larger glass), the aim being to spill the minimum whilst walking as many lengths as possible. In a second condition, the added demand of conversing is included. The two conditions are compared in terms of the volume of water spilt per length walked in order to derive an index of cognitive-motor DT performance. We will present performance data for 200 controls and 100 people with BI. Some BI people, under DT conditions, tend to be more stimulus driven, sacrificing the more automatic, learned motor action of walking in favour of the more attentionally demanding tasks, whilst others perform surprisingly well in a demanding task. Possible reasons will be discussed.