Variables Dependent variables. There were four dependent variables chosen as primary outcome measures. These are listed below. Functional Gait Assessment (FGA) The FGA (Appendix C) is a 10-item test and was chosen as dependent variable because it assesses performance on complex gait tasks (i.e., walking and turning, walking with head turns, stepping over an obstacle, and climbing stairs) (Wrisley et al., 2004; Walker et al., 2007). Scores for each item range between 0-3. The total highest score is 30 and lowest 0. Greater scores are indicative of better performance. The FGA has been validated in healthy people, older adults with a history of falls and balance impairments, and people with a vestibular disorder (Wrisley and Kumar, 2010; Marchetti et al., 2014). Another reason why this scale was chosen is because this measure has been used to predict falls. A cut-off score of 22/30 identifies falls risk and can predict unexplained falls in community-dwelling older adults within 6 months (Wrisley and Kumar, 2010). This test takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Clinicians and researchers can easily implement FGA as it requires minimum training and equipment (e.g., 6-meter walkway, stairs, a stopwatch, and an obstacle such as a shoe box). The standard FGA in isolation was always completed first followed by the three DT test conditions, which were completed in random order. The cognitive DT conditions completed with FGA involved a numeracy (FGA-Numeracy) and literacy (FGA-Literacy) task, and the auditory (FGA-Auditory) stimuli which involved a restaurant noise. The numeracy task involved counting backwards from 100 in 7’s and multiplication and division of the 7- and 8-times table up to x12. The literacy task involved reciting alternate letters of the alphabet, days of the week and months of a year. Participants performed the cognitive DT tests in order of a→ b→ c→ a. Participants also, completed in isolation the cognitive numeracy and literacy tasks whist seated, in isolation before completing these simultaneously with FGA. For FGA-Auditory, the FGA was performed in the presence of a restaurant noise via headphones as per previous publication (Buyle et al., 2021). A multi-speaker babble noise in a restaurant environment was used as this is the most common environmental background noise where listeners report difficulties with (Spyridakou et al., 2012). No specific instructions regarding task prioritisation were given for any of the FGA test conditions. The scoring sheet is attached in ...
