Movement structure in young and elderly adults during goal-directed movements of the left and right arm.
Elderly adults often exhibit performance deficits during goal-directed movements of the dominant arm compared with young adults. Recent studies involving hemispheric lateralization have provided evidence that the dominant and non-dominant hemisphere-arm systems are specialized for controlling different movement parameters and that hemispheric specialization may be reduced during normal aging. The purpose was to examine age-related differences in the movement structure for the dominant (right) and non-dominant (left) during goal-directed movements. Young and elderly adults performed 72 aiming movements as fast and as accurately as possible to visual targets with both arms. The findings suggest that previous research utilizing the dominant arm can be generalized to the non-dominant arm because performance was similar for the two arms. However, as expected, the elderly adults showed shorter relative primary submovement lengths and longer relative primary submovement durations, reaction times, movement durations, and normalized jerk scores compared to the young adults.
Poston
Brach
B
Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Kinesiology, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 870404, Tempe, AZ 85287-0404, USA.
Van Gemmert
Arend W A
AW
Barduson
Beth
B
Stelmach
George E
GE
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001132:Arm / Q000502:physiology*; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity; D009048:Motor Skills; D009068:Movement; D011930:Reaction Time; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult