Measuring implicit sequence learning and dual task ability in mild to moderate Parkinson´s disease: A feasibility study

PLoS One. 2021 May 21;16(5):e0251849. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251849. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

We investigated the feasibility aspects of two choice reaction time tasks designed to assess implicit sequence learning and dual task ability in individuals with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease in comparison to healthy individuals. Twelve individuals with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease and 12 healthy individuals, all ≥ 60 years of age, were included. A serial reaction time task was used as a measure of implicit sequence learning and a similar task but with the addition of a simple counting task, was used as a measure of dual task ability. We have present thorough descriptive statistics of the data but we have refrained from any inferential statistics due to the small sample size. All participants understood the task instructions and the difficulty level of both tasks was deemed acceptable. There were indications of task fatigue that demand careful choices for how best to analyse the data from such tasks in future trials. Ceiling effects were present in several accuracy outcomes, but not in the reaction time outcomes. Overall, we found both tasks to be feasible to use in samples of individuals with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease and healthy older individuals.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Parkinson Disease / psychology*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Reaction Time / physiology*
  • Serial Learning / physiology*
  • Severity of Illness Index

Grants and funding

E.F. Swedish Research Council, https://www.vr.se, 2016-01965 E.F. Parkinson research foundation, https://parkinsonfoundation.se, grant number not applicable/used E.F. Centre for Innovative Medicine for financial support, https://cimed.ki.se, grant number not applicable/used The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.