Frontal Cerebral Blood Flow during Dual-Task Performance in Young Adults
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Falls are one of the primary risk factors that cause older adults to become bedridden. According to the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions conducted by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in 1998, falls and fractures are the third leading cause of patients becoming bedridden, culminating in the need for long-term care. Conventional fall prevention methods target physical motor functions and involve methods for improving lower extremity muscle strength and body balance in individuals at a high risk of falling. Several reports have documented a decrease in the fall rate with the improvement of physical motor functions. However, the fall-induced death rate in Japan was 5.3% (2005) in a population of 100,000 people, which has increased to 6.4% (2015) in the past 10 years. As the population of older individuals is continuously increasing, the incidence of falls, particularly those that result in death, will likely increase. This suggests that the fall prevention strategies that have been implemented to date are inadequate. While walking, individuals register and utilize visual information about the surrounding environment to prevent them from stumbling or colliding with objects. Attention is the extraction of specific information from various objects and experiences and the ability to be conscious of it clearly. Several cognitive functions, including attention, are governed by the frontal lobe, which is the brain region most affected by aging.