Watching What You Say

Abstract

This article reports 3 pilot studies of cognitively impaired (CI) persons responding to different types of questions. Pilot 1 analyzed responses of 7 people at high CI risk and 7 people at low CI risk to questions asked during seated conversation. High-risk participants paused longer before responding. Pilot 2 identified types of questions asked from 1 participant in seated conversations with 2 interviewers and analyzed her responses. Pilot 3 introduced a dual task, walking while answering an unexpected question. The CI participants paused longer before responding than controls. A subset of 6 time-distance parameters distinguished gait of the 2 participant groups.