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      Age and Grip Strength Predict Hand Dexterity in Adults

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          Abstract

          In the scientific literature, there is much evidence of a relationship between age and dexterity, where increased age is related to slower, less nimble and less smooth, less coordinated and less controlled performances. While some suggest that the relationship is a direct consequence of reduced muscle strength associated to increased age, there is a lack of research that has systematically investigated the relationships between age, strength and hand dexterity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the associations between age, grip strength and dexterity. 107 adults (range 18-93 years) completed a series of hand dexterity tasks (i.e. steadiness, line tracking, aiming, and tapping) and a test of maximal grip strength. We performed three phases of analyses. Firstly, we evaluated the simple relationships between pairs of variables; replicating the existing literature; and found significant relationships of increased age and reduced strength; increased age and reduced dexterity, and; reduced strength and reduced dexterity. Secondly, we used standard Multiple Regression (MR) models to determine which of the age and strength factors accounted for the greater variance in dexterity. The results showed that both age and strength made significant contributions to the data variance, but that age explained more of the variance in steadiness and line tracking dexterity, whereas strength explained more of the variance in aiming and tapping dexterity. In a third phase of analysis, we used MR analyses to show an interaction between age and strength on steadiness hand dexterity. Simple Slopes post-hoc analyses showed that the interaction was explained by the middle to older aged adults showing a relationship between reduced strength and reduced hand steadiness, whereas younger aged adults showed no relationship between strength and steadiness hand dexterity. The results are discussed in terms of how age and grip strength predict different types of hand dexterity in adults.

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          Most cited references47

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          Validation of the Box and Block Test as a measure of dexterity of elderly people: reliability, validity, and norms studies.

          Manual dexterity is a skill frequently evaluated in rehabilitation to estimate hand function. Several tests have been developed for this purpose, including the Box and Block Test (BBT) that measures gross manual dexterity. The goal of the present study was to verify the test-retest reliability and construct validity of the BBT with subjects aged 60 and over with upper limb impairment. The second objective of this research was to develop normative data based on a random sample of healthy elderly community-living individuals. The results show that the test-retest reliability is high (intraclass correlations coefficients of 0.89 to 0.97) and the validity of the test is shown by significant correlations between the BBT, an upper limb performance measurement and a functional independence measurement. The norms will help rehabilitation clinicians to differentiate better between real difficulties and those that may be attributed to normal aging.
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            Information processing rates in the elderly.

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              Muscle strength, power and adaptations to resistance training in older people.

              Muscle strength and, to a greater extent, power inexorably decline with ageing. Quantitative loss of muscle mass, referred to as "sarcopenia", is the most important factor underlying this phenomenon. However, qualitative changes of muscle fibres and tendons, such as selective atrophy of fast-twitch fibres and reduced tendon stiffness, and neural changes, such as lower activation of the agonist muscles and higher coactivation of the antagonist muscles, also account for the age-related decline in muscle function. The selective atrophy of fast-twitch fibres has been ascribed to the progressive loss of motoneurons in the spinal cord with initial denervation of fast-twitch fibres, which is often accompanied by reinnervation of these fibres by axonal sprouting from adjacent slow-twitch motor units (MUs). In addition, single fibres of older muscles containing myosin heavy chains of both type I and II show lower tension and shortening velocity with respect to the fibres of young muscles. Changes in central activation capacity are still controversial. At the peripheral level, the rate of decline in parameters of the surface-electromyogram power spectrum and in the action-potential conduction velocity has been shown to be lower in older muscle. Therefore, the older muscle seems to be more resistant to isometric fatigue (fatigue-paradox), which can be ascribed to the selective atrophy of fast-twitch fibres, slowing in the contractile properties and lower MU firing rates. Finally, specific training programmes can dramatically improve the muscle strength, power and functional abilities of older individuals, which will be examined in the second part of this review.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Academic Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                17 February 2015
                2015
                : 10
                : 2
                : e0117598
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Functional Neuroimaging Group, Department of Radiology, University Hospital Bonn, Sigmund-Freud Str. 25, 53127, Bonn, Germany
                [2 ]Division of Neuropsychology, Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Eberhard Karls University, Hoppe-Seyler-Str. 3, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
                [3 ]School of Health and Population Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
                [4 ]Institute of Sport & Exercise Science, University of Worcester, Worcester, United Kingdom
                [5 ]Faculty of Health & Sport Sciences, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
                [6 ]Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
                [7 ]Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
                University of Rome Foro Italico, ITALY
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: JAM MGE. Performed the experiments: JAM. Analyzed the data: JAM MGE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JAM JR MGE. Wrote the paper: JAM MGE. Finalisation of the manuscript: JAM JR DMP CH MGE. Provided the equipment for measurement: JR. Provided guidance for research design and analysis and discussion: DMP CH MGE.

                Article
                PONE-D-13-37096
                10.1371/journal.pone.0117598
                4331509
                25689161
                1b086515-5743-45df-acc0-aa5808d6d2c4
                Copyright @ 2015

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

                History
                : 9 September 2013
                : 29 December 2014
                Page count
                Figures: 4, Tables: 2, Pages: 17
                Funding
                Funding for the individuals involved in the current study was received from the University of Birmingham and the University of Worcester. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article

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