Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, Vol 54, Issue 4 M177-M183, Copyright © 1999 by The Gerontological Society of America
The effects of circumferential wrist pressure on reproduction accuracy of wrist placement in healthy young and elderly adults
M Batavia, JG Gianutsos, W Ling and AJ Nelson
Department of Physical Therapy, School of Education, New York University, NY 10010, USA. [email protected]
BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of
circumferential wrist pressure on reproduction accuracy of wrist placement
in healthy young and elderly adults. A convenience sample of 20 young
adults having a mean age of 22.9 years and 20 elderly adults with a mean
age of 68.2 years participated in the study. METHOD: Blindfolded subjects
were asked to actively self-select a neutral wrist position (reference) and
then, when signaled, to actively reproduce the previously selected
position. Wrist joint reproduction accuracy was assessed under four
pressure conditions: no contact, wrist contact, 10 mm Hg, and 20 mm Hg. A
single axis dynamic wrist electrogoniometer measured three dependent
variables: absolute, constant, and variable errors. Data were analyzed by
means of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) for repeated measures.
RESULTS: No significant differences in reproduction accuracy under the four
pressure conditions for young or elderly adults were found. CONCLUSIONS:
Healthy young and elderly adults may utilize existing intrinsic feedback
and central control mechanisms to achieve accuracy during a reproduction
task. Some subjects in both age groups who entered into the study with high
error scores benefited from circumferential pressure by possibly relying on
peripheral mechanisms. Further studies are needed to determine the effect
of circumferential pressure on subjects with poor reproduction performance.
