Abstract
Age-related declines in fine motor control may impact tool-use and thereby limit functional independence. Most previous research has, however, focused on the effect of aging on gross motor tasks. Few studies have investigated the effects of aging on the strategy or quality of fine motor skills, especially in tool-use, which may better reflect how age impacts complex movement capability. Twenty-two young (ages 19–35) and 18 older adults (ages 58–87) performed a timed upper extremity task using a tool to acquire and transport objects to different locations. Overall task performance was divided into two phases based on 3-D position of the tool: a gross motor phase (object transport) and a fine motor phase (object acquisition). Overall, older adults took longer to complete the task. A linear model indicated that this was due to the duration of the fine motor phase more so than the gross motor phase. To identify age-related differences in the quality of the fine motor phase, we fit three-dimensional ellipsoids to individual data and the calculated the ellipsoid volume. Results demonstrated a significant volume-by-age interaction, whereby increased ellipsoid volume (space the tool occupied) related to increased mean dwell time for the older adult group only; younger adults did not demonstrate this relationship. Additionally, older adults with longer movement times during the fine motor phase also had lower cognitive scores. No age-related differences were observed for the gross motor phase, suggesting that age-related declines in tool-use may be due to changes in fine motor control and cognitive status.
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Metadata that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Code used to calculate ellipsoid hull can be found at the following github: https://github.com/hooymana/Ellipsoid.
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This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant number K01AG047926 to SYS]. This sponsor did not have any role in the following: the study design; the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; the writing of the paper; nor the decision to submit the paper for publication.
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Author AH contributed to literature search, writing, data analysis, figure creation, data interpretation, and drafting/revising the manuscript. Author PW contributed to data collection, data interpretation, and revising the manuscript. Author SYS contributed to literature search, writing, figure creation, study design, data interpretation, and revision of the manuscript.
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This study was approved by the Arizona State University Institutional Review Board (Study 00004214 and 00009764), and was therefore performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.
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Hooyman, A., Wang, P. & Schaefer, S.Y. Age-related differences in functional tool-use are due to changes in movement quality and not simply motor slowing. Exp Brain Res 239, 1617–1626 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-021-06084-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-021-06084-x