title: Normative values and the effects of age, gender, and handedness on the Moberg Pick-Up Test.
abstract: The Moberg Pick-Up Test is a standardized test for assessing hand dexterity. Although reduction of sensation in the hand occurs with aging, the effect of age on a subject's performance of the Moberg Pick-Up Test has not been examined. The primary goal of this study was to examine the impact of aging and, secondarily, the impact of gender and handedness, on performance of the Moberg Pick-Up Test in 116 healthy subjects. The average time to complete each of the four subsets of the test was analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U, and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. The results show that hand dexterity of the subjects was significantly affected by age, with young subjects being the fastest and elderly subjects the slowest. Women accomplished the test faster than men, and task performance with the dominant hand was faster than with the non-dominant hand. Use of normative values established based on age and gender is a valuable objective tool to gauge hand function in patients with different neurologic disorders.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Neuroscience, University of Alberta, 513 Heritage Medical Research Centre, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2S2, Canada.
authors.forename: Nasim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Amirjani
authors.forename: Nigel L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Ashworth
authors.forename: Tessa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: K Ming
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D009119:Muscle Contraction / Q000502:physiology; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012727:Sex Characteristics