Abstract
The cognitive load associated with joint position sense increases with age but does not necessarily result in impaired performance in a joint position matching task. It is still unclear which factors interact with age to predict matching performance. To test whether movement amplitude and direction are part of such predictors, young and older adults performed a bimanual wrist joint position matching task. Results revealed an age-related deficit when the target limb was positioned far from (25°) the neutral position, but not when close to (15°, 5°) the neutral joint position, irrespective of the direction. These results suggest that the difficulty associated with the comparison of two musculoskeletal states increases towards extreme joint amplitude and that older adults are more vulnerable to this increased difficulty.
Highlights
Perception is an interpretation of physical reality
Joint position sense has been widely investigated in the context of aging
Some of these investigations used dual-task paradigms to reveal that the cognitive load associated with joint position sense increased with age (Boisgontier et al, 2012; Goble et al, 2012b)
Summary
Proprioception is the perception of our body state in the absence of vision (Goble et al, 2009; Proske and Gandevia, 2012; Boisgontier and Swinnen, 2014). This state is defined by position, movement, and muscle force or tension. Joint position sense has been widely investigated in the context of aging (for a review, see Goble et al, 2009) Some of these investigations used dual-task paradigms to reveal that the cognitive load associated with joint position sense increased with age (Boisgontier et al, 2012; Goble et al, 2012b). The level of physical activity has been shown to be one element in these predictors (Ribeiro and Oliveira, 2007; Adamo et al, 2009), and joint amplitude may be another
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