Associate Professor Satoshi Shinsako of Kiou University, in collaboration with Mukogawa Women's University, Meiji University, and Keio University, put a compact stochastic resonance device on their wrists to make them dexterous in the hands of children with developmental coordination dyskinesia. It was revealed that the professor improved.
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a type of neurodevelopmental disorder that is not paralyzed but has a marked decline in the acquisition and performance of coordinated motor skills.Awkwardness appears in various motor skills of school life, daily life and sports activities, and there are concerns about psychological effects such as self-affirmation, decreased self-esteem, anxiety disorder, and increased depression. The frequency of DCD is extremely high at 5 to 6% of school-aged children, and it is said that the majority of them have difficulty in coordination even in adolescence and adulthood.
On the other hand, improvement of sensory and motor functions by weak mechanical random noise stimulation to the body has been known for a long time.This improvement is called the stochastic resonance (SR) phenomenon and has been observed in post-stroke hemiplegic patients, Parkinson's disease patients, and cerebral palsy children in addition to healthy subjects.However, there were very few reports of interventions for children with DCD, and their effectiveness was unknown.
The research group conducted a double-blind intervention study using the SR phenomenon in 6 children aged 11 to 30 years with DCD (mean age 9.3 years).SR was provided by vibration tactile random noise stimulation by a vibration tactile device (SR device) attached to both wrists of the child, and a manual dexterity test (fine motor function test) was performed.As a result, the manual dexterity of the child with DCD was significantly improved when the SR phenomenon was applied by the SR device.
However, the improvement effect of SR was not carried over when SR was not provided immediately after that.In the future, it is necessary to study the relationship between the length of SR provision time and the type of exercise while wearing the SR device and the "carry-over effect".
