Effect of a secondary task on the time course and specificity on learning a balance skill

The objective of this study was to use an advanced VR-based system to explore the extent to which posture control mechanisms in adults can undergo experience-dependent changes when a novel balance task is acquired and retained. Eight healthy young adults practiced a novel complex task with and without a concurrent manual task within a single training session in a virtual environment (VE). The time-course of learning the balance aspects of the task with and without the concurrent secondary visuo-motor task was similar. Thus, the learning process was robust enough to withstand the attention demands of a complex visuo-motor secondary task. The implications of these findings for rehabilitation are discussed.