FINGER COORDINATION IN ELDERLY

随着年龄的增长，手部功能受损是限制许多日常生活活动的主要致残因素。 手灵活性的下降可能导致失去独立性，并在大多数日常活动中需要外部护理。 我们目前对人手的功能及其功能随年龄变化的理解是有限的。 这使得有必要进行研究，以提高对手部功能及其随年龄的恶化的理解。对对照组的一系列研究和对一小群老年受试者的初步发现使我们能够提出两个主要假设：（a）衰老与手内在肌肉的选择性损伤有关;（B）衰老与多指任务中力量不足的增加有关。 为了分析这些与年龄有关的变化对随年龄而丧失手灵活性的可能贡献，已经制定了以下研究计划：（1）使用更大的受试者群体和更广泛的任务来证实初步结论;（2）分析这些变化对多个国家的关键特征的影响，手指协同作用，如最小化次力矩和单个手指力的变化模式（3）分析在诸如抓握和双手物体处理等更常见的动作期间手指和手协调的可能变化;（4）手指协调性指标的变化与涉及手功能的日常生活活动的相关性分析。七个实验老年人和对照组的建议，包括生产力套手指在抓和按下任务，自我施加的扰动，和双手动对象处理。 该研究将结合联合收割机非侵入性的行为，生物力学，电生理和建模方法，以及问卷调查。 在一项实验中，将结果与日常生活活动指数进行比较。对每个实验都做出了不可信的预测。 我们认为，支持或反驳这两个主要的假设是重要的，不仅要更好地了解与年龄相关的变化，手部肌肉协调，但也为开发新的康复方法的手功能。

Impairment of hand function with age is a major disabling factor limiting many activities of daily living. A decrease in the hand dexterity may lead to a loss of independence and require external care during most everyday activities. Our present understanding of the functioning of the human hand and changes in its function with age is limited. This makes it imperative to perform studies directed at improved understanding of the hand function and its deterioration with age. Series of studies on control subjects and preliminary findings in a small group of elderly subjects have allowed us to formulate two major hypotheses: (a) Aging is associated with selective impairment of intrinsic hand muscles; and (b) Aging is associated with an increase in force deficit during multi-finger tasks. The following research program has been elaborated for an analysis of possible contribution of these age-related changes to the loss of hand dexterity with age: (1) Confirmation of the preliminary conclusions using a larger subject population and a wider spectrum of tasks; (2) Analysis of the effects of these changes on crucial features of multi-finger synergies such as minimization of secondary moments and patterns of variability of individual finger forces (error compensation among fingers); (3) Analysis of possible changes in finger and hand coordination during more common actions such as gripping and bi-manual object handling; and (4) Analysis of correlations between changes in the indices of finger coordination and activities of daily living that involve hand function. Seven experiments on elderly and control subjects are suggested that include force production by sets of fingers in gripping and pressing tasks, self-imposed perturbations, and bi-manual object handling. The research will combine noninvasive behavioral, biomechanical, electrophysiological, and modeling methods, as well as questionnaires. In one experiment, the results will be compared with indices of the activities of daily living. Disprovable predictions are made for each experiment. We believe that supporting or disproving the two main Hypotheses is important not only for a better understanding of age-related changes in hand muscle coordination but also for development of new rehabilitation approaches to hand function.