Generalization of functional task-specific motor training in older adults

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is an application for a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01), submitted by Dr. Sydney Schaefer, Assistant Professor at Utah State University. The purpose of this K01 application is to strategically enhance the candidate's career in the areas of neuropsychology, disability, and geriatric physical rehabilitation through targeted coursework, clinical exposure, and career products. The candidate's supportive and successful institutional environment ensures that the formal career development plan will add to her existing expertise in human movement. Her long-term career goal is to become an independent, tenured scientist with an externally funded research program that will impact the field of physical rehabilitation for older adults. Currently more than 40% of ll physical rehabilitation cases are adults age 65 or older. A commonly used treatment is task-specific training, in which patients repetitively practice a functional motor skill that underlies meaningful activity of daily living. Current rehabilitative practice does not, however, provide older patients with enough time in therapy to address multiple skills; thus, older adults must be able to generalize the benefits of their rehabilitative treatment. The purpose of this four-year research plan is to test whether older adults can generalize learned information after task-specific training, and if generalization is influenced by cognitive status, as many older adults ar susceptible to cognitive decline. In this project, adults age 65 or older will train on one functioal motor task that simulates feeding, but will be tested on a different untrained functional motor task that simulates dressing. The central hypothesis is that the untrained task (simulated dressing) will become less difficult and less distractible after practicing the trained task (simulated feeding), but that these generalized benefits will be attenuated in adults with lower cognitive status. Results will be compared to control data from subjects with no motor training, and this hypothesis will be tested using cost-effective real-world tools. If the generalization of motor learning between functional motor tasks depends on cognitive status, then future research will identify which specific cognitive impairments best predict physical rehabilitative outcomes. Alternatively, if older adults can generalize motor learning between functional motor tasks regardless of cognitive status, then physically disabled adults with dementia may benefit equally from rehabilitation as adults without cognitive impairment. The candidate's additional training in cognitive assessment and disablement models will complement her research plan, preparing her for future R01 submissions that address physical rehabilitation in older adults and thereby maximize their quality of life.