The Effect Of Old Age On Motor Control

A decrease in motor ability can have a profound impact on a person's capacity to maintain independence. Motor skill levels decline with age and this can create difficulties for older adults as they attempt to maintain independent lives. The fact that people in today's society are living for much longer means that robust methods for examining movement in older adults, must be developed. These methods will increase our understanding of how movement deteriorates with age and inform approaches to rehabilitation in cases where movement is lost (e.g. motor paresis after stroke). Accordingly, this doctoral research used sophisticated kinematic technology to create a series of computerised visuomotor tasks designed to achieve the following primary aims (i) to examine specific questions regarding age differences in motor performance; (ii) to create an experimental task to measure and infer potential causes of age-related changes in motor learning; and (iii) use the motor learning task to assess the outcomes of tDCS in healthy younger and older adults. A secondary aim was to produce tests that have the potential for use in rehabilitative settings, where more sensitive methods of assessment are required. Chapter 1 reviews previous research on the topics of ageing, motor control, and rehabilitation, and identifies needs for further empirical investigation. Age differences in motor performance are examined in the experimental work of Chapters 2 and 3, which suggests that older people compensate for motor decline by making spatial and temporal adjustments to their movements in order to meet task demands - a finding that generalised between two different motor tasks. Chapter 4 considers performance differences between the preferred and non-preferred hand, and includes findings of a tracing study where manual asymmetries were reduced in older adults. The problems that can arise when measuring differences between the hands are, however, highlighted in the experimental work of Chapter 5. The research in Chapters 6 and 7 focuses on motor learning. In Chapter 6 a motor sequence learning task is developed, which was used to examine the relationship between motor performance and learning. This task paradigm was used again in Chapter 7, which begins by reviewing previous studies that have applied Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to modify movement in healthy people and in stroke populations, and ends with two experiments that found no beneficial effects of tDCS on motor sequence learning in younger and older adults. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the findings of each experimental chapter and considers future applications of the motor tasks designed throughout this doctoral work.

Emerging and currently available technologies offer great promise for helping older adults, even those without serious disabilities, to live healthy, comfortable, and productive lives. What technologies offer the most potential benefit? What challenges must be overcome, what problems must be solved, for this promise to be fulfilled? How can federal agencies like the National Institute on Aging best use their resources to support the translation from laboratory findings to useful, marketable products and services? Technology for Adaptive Aging is the product of a workshop that brought together distinguished experts in aging research and in technology to discuss applications of technology to communication, education and learning, employment, health, living environments, and transportation for older adults. It includes all of the workshop papers and the report of the committee that organized the workshop. The committee report synthesizes and evaluates the points made in the workshop papers and recommends priorities for federal support of translational research in technology for older adults.

This book describes the changes in the brain and in cognitive functions that occur with aging in the absence of a neurological, psychiatric, or medical disease. It discusses aging-related changes in many brain functions, including memory, language, sensory perception, motor function, creativity, attention, executive functions, emotions and mood. The neural mechanisms that may account for specific aging-related changes in cognition, perception and behavior are explored, as well as the means by which aging-related cognitive decrements can be managed and possibly ameliorated. Consequently, this book will be of value to clinicians, including neurologists, psychiatrists, geriatricians, primary care physicians, psychologists and speech-language pathologists. In addition, researchers and graduate students who want to learn about the aging brain will find this an indispensable guide.

Movement is arguably the most fundamental and important function of the nervous system. Purposive movement requires the coordination of actions within many areas of the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, basal ganglia, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves and sensory receptors, which together must control a highly complex biomechanical apparatus made up of the skeleton and muscles. Beginning at the level of biomechanics and spinal reflexes and proceeding upward to brain structures in the cerebellum, brainstem and cerebral cortex, the chapters in this book highlight the important issues in movement control. Commentaries provide a balanced treatment of the articles that have been written by experts in a variety of areas concerned with movement, including behaviour, physiology, robotics, and mathematics.

Recently, studies on aging processes and age-related changes in behavior have been expanding considerably, probably due to the dramatic changes observed in the demographics. This increase in the overall age and proportion of elderly people has heightened the severity of problems associated with the safety and well-being of elderly persons in everyday life. Many researchers working on motor control have thus focused more intensely on the effects of age on motor control. This new avenue of research has led to programs for alleviating or delaying the specific sensory-motor limitations encountered by the elderly (e.g. falls) in an attempt to make the elderly more autonomous. The aggregation of studies from different perspectives is often fascinating, especially when the same field can serve as a common ground between researchers. Nearly all contributors to this book work on sensory-motor aging; they represent a large range of affiliations and backgrounds including psychology, neurobiology, cognitive sciences, kinesiology, neuropsychology, neuropharmacology, motor performance, physical therapy, exercise science, and human development. Addressing age-related behavioral changes can also furnish some crucial reflections in the debate about motor coordination: aging is the product of both maturational and environmental processes, and studies on aging must determine how the intricate interrelationships between these processes evolve. The study of aging makes it possible to determine how compensatory mechanisms, operating on different subsystems and each aging at its own rate, compensate for biological degenerations and changing external demands. This volume will contribute to demonstrating that the study of the aging process raises important theoretical questions.

A thought-provoking treatise on understanding and treating the aging mind and brain This handbook recognizes the critical issues surrounding mind and brain health by tackling overarching and pragmatic needs so as to better understand these multifaceted issues. This includes summarizing and synthesizing critical evidence, approaches, and strategies from multidisciplinary research—all of which have advanced our understanding of the neural substrates of attention, perception, memory, language, decision-making, motor behavior, social cognition, emotion, and other mental functions. Written by a plethora of health experts from around the world, The Wiley Handbook on the Aging Mind and Brain offers in-depth contributions in 7 sections: Introduction; Methods of Assessment; Brain Functions and Behavior across the Lifespan; Cognition, Behavior and Disease; Optimizing Brain Function in Health and Disease; Forensics, Competence, Legal, Ethics and Policy Issues; and Conclusion and New Directions. Geared toward improving the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of many brain-based disorders that occur in older adults and that cause disability and death Seeks to advance the care of patients who have perceptual, cognitive, language, memory, emotional, and many other behavioral symptoms associated with these disorders Addresses principles and practice relevant to challenges posed by the US National Academy of Sciences and National Institute of Aging (NIA) Presents materials at a scientific level that is appropriate for a wide variety of providers The Wiley Handbook on the Aging Mind and Brain is an important text for neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, physiatrists, geriatricians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and other primary caregivers who care for patients in routine and specialty practices as well as students, interns, residents, and fellows.

This book is the first to view the effects of development, aging, and practice on the control of human voluntary movement from a contemporary context. Emphasis is on the links between progress in basic motor control research and applied areas such as motor disorders and motor rehabilitation. Relevant to both professionals in the areas of motor control, movement disorders, and motor rehabilitation, and to students starting their careers in one of these actively developed areas.

Motor Learning and Development, Second Edition With Web Resource, provides a foundation for understanding how humans acquire and continue to hone their movement skills throughout the life span.

THE EFFECTS OF AGING ON COGNITIVE MOTOR CONTROL Alex Shaver June, 2019 Director of Thesis: Dr. J.C. Mizelle Major Department: Kinesiology Introduction: Processing speed, working memory capacity, inhibitory function, and long-term memory are all aspects of information processing that become less efficient with age. Unsurprisingly, brain size, density, and proficiency regarding complex motor behavior deteriorate with the introduction of neurological disorders illness, injury, and even healthy aging. What remains unexplained is why declines in the understanding and execution of tool-related actions similar to clinical populations have been seen in the healthy aging population. However, some older individuals maintain the ability to plan and execute complex, goal-oriented movements, referred to as praxis. Whether praxis deficits are a product of neuroanatomical alterations or arise from changes in the functional properties of regions and networks normally recruited for processing tasks is currently unknown. We do know that older adults engage in scaffolding, overactivation of expected brain regions or the additional activation of regions not typically recruited by younger adults in the same task. More specifically, hemispheric asymmetry reduction is a type of scaffolding seen in the older brain (HAROLD). HAROLD activation is described as a reduced activity in the initial region and increased activation in the same area of the opposite hemisphere - reminiscent of a mirror-image. Shifts from using posterior brain regions to anterior regions (PASA) are also patterns seen in healthy older adults. Whether or not these activation patterns are helpful or harmful in compensating for the inevitable changes with healthy aging is unclear. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that the older group (OG) would show increased bilateral activity compared to the younger group (YG) in response to the ideal tool (C1) and plausible tool (C2) conditions. This was expected to be true for each region of interest (ROI): frontal, premotor, and parietal. This bilateral activation is expected to apply to the expected shift from recruiting posterior brain regions to an anterior focus expected for C1 and C2 in OG compared to YG. We also expected to see differences between the groups' ERP amplitudes and latencies indicative of greater task difficulty for OG compared to YG. Purpose: This study aimed to better understand the cortical dynamics that support the ability of some healthy older individuals to evaluate common tools in different situations by comparing the neural responses to younger adults. A better understanding of the neurophysiological differences between these two healthy populations in successful tool-use and evaluation could be helpful in creating more personalized and effective rehabilitation programs for clinical populations as well as otherwise healthy older adults presenting with performance deficits. Methods: This study included twenty-one younger and twelve older right-handed participants between the ages of 18-35 and 60-84 years-old, respectively. Participants were presented with high resolution black and white images of ideal and plausible tool use and asked to identify them based on a preceding action description. Participants indicated their choice by pressing a corresponding button on a response pad. Using a 64-channel electroencephalography cap, the neural responses of these individuals to the stimuli were recorded. The results reported here include two latency windows (0-250ms and 350-550ms post stimulus onset) over bilateral frontal, premotor, and parietal regions of interest (ROIs) for the C1 and C2. Variance was reduced using the Bootstrap resampling method and age-based comparisons of brain activation were made with non-parametric permutation-based statistics, p

The authors explore recent progress in theoretical & experimental studies of motor control, from the perspective of practitioners who work with patients that have motor disorders. The text also develops new approaches to motor rehabilitation.