In considering the health condition of the elderly, it is important whether daily activities can be performed smoothly.BACKGROUND ART In daily life, there are many situations in which people perform accurate finger pinching actions such as putting on and taking off clothes, using chopsticks, holding coins, and turning pages in reading.Therefore, there are many complaints of subjective symptoms related to finger dexterity, but although there are complaints of subjective symptoms, objective findings on clinical examination are poor and the underlying disease cannot be found. There are many clinically.
So, where does the decline in finger dexterity and the subjective complaints about the decline in finger dexterity come from?Regarding the neurophysiological background, Assistant Professor Yuki Fukumoto of the Department of Physical Therapy at Kansai University of Health Sciences and Professor Toshiaki Suzuki, Dean of the Graduate School of Kansai University of Health Sciences, conducted joint research with Kao Corporation from the perspective of changes in the conduction velocity of motor and sensory nerves. Study was carried out.
The research team measured nerve conduction velocities in the forearm segments of 30 young subjects (21-34 years old) and 30 elderly subjects (60-74 years old) for both motor and sensory nerves.In addition, the absolute error of the pinch force exerted during the capacity control task, evaluation of finger dexterity using a pegboard, and subjective complaints regarding motor function, pain, and numbness using a question index were conducted.These measurement indices were compared between the young and the elderly, and the correlation between each data and the causal relationship using structural equation modeling were evaluated.
As a result, a decrease in motor nerve conduction velocity was associated with a decrease in finger dexterity.Furthermore, it was found that the decrease in sensory nerve conduction velocity is not related to the actual decrease in finger dexterity, but it produces subjective complaints of motor function related to the decrease in finger dexterity.
Paper information:[Experimental Brain Research] Decreased nerve conduction velocity may be a predictor of fingertip dexterity and subjective complaints
