Factors Underlying Age-related Changes in Discrete Aiming

Overview

Journal Exp Brain Res

Specialty Neurology

Date 2015 Mar 20

PMID 25788008

Citations 13

Authors

Florian Van Halewyck

Ann Lavrysen

Oron Levin

Matthieu P Boisgontier

Digby Elliott

Werner F Helsen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Age has a clear impact on one's ability to make accurate goal-directed aiming movements. Older adults seem to plan slower and shorter-ranged initial pulses towards the target, and rely more on sensory feedback to ensure endpoint accuracy. Despite the fact that these age-related changes in manual aiming have been observed consistently, the underlying mechanism remains speculative. In an attempt to isolate four commonly suggested underlying factors, young and older adults were instructed to make discrete aiming movements under varying speed and accuracy constraints. Results showed that older adults were physically able to produce fast primary submovements and that they demonstrated similar movement-programming capacities as young adults. On the other hand, considerable evidence was found supporting a decreased visual feedback-processing efficiency and the implementation of a play-it-safe strategy in older age. In conclusion, a combination of the latter two factors seems to underlie the age-related changes in manual aiming behaviour.

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