Motor Function in Aging Adults: Rehabilitative Strategies Through Practice and Electrical Stimulation

Daneshgar, Sajjad

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Motor Function in Aging Adults: Rehabilitative Strategies Through Practice and Electrical Stimulation Public Deposited

Analytics

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/wh246t84q

Abstract

This dissertation explores the effects of aging on motor function with a specific focus on manual dexterity and walking endurance. The first two studies focus on manual dexterity in older adults, examining how practice can influence motor performance, particularly through improvements in the grooved pegboard task times. These studies revealed that initial performance significantly explains the extent of improvement in manual dexterity, suggesting the idea of stratifying older adults based on their initial performance rather than their chronological age. Moreover, this stratification can provide more insightful details about their improvement in force steadiness, the ability to sustain an isometric contraction at a submaximal target force. The performance of grooved pegboard test in both fast and slow groups of older adults can be explained by force steadiness and this explanation is unchanged for the slow older adults from before to after a practice intervention.

The subsequent studies shift focus to the application of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) in enhancing walking endurance and balance in older adults. These studies investigate the biomechanical outcomes of TENS application during the 6-minute walk test, providing insights into the potential of TENS to change walking endurance of older adults. The results found a significantly reduced 6-min walking distance under the application of TENS compared with the control condition. However, re-examination of the data from middle-aged and older adults with machine learning techniques can explain the common kinematic changes induced by TENS in walking speed and walking balance, providing a detailed characterization of stride variability, and walking patterns under different stimulation conditions in middle-aged and older adults.

Together, these studies explore a comprehensive view of how targeted interventions, both in the form of physical practice and electrical stimulation can minimize the decline in motor function associated with aging. Moreover, new analytical approaches of clustering and machine learning can augment our understanding of age-related declines in motor function.

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