Motor Control Laboratory, School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States.
Neurosci Lett. 2011 Aug 15;500(2):108-12. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.06.015. Epub 2011 Jun 17.
Age-related changes in proprioceptive ability and their contributions to postural instability have been well documented. In contrast, and despite the known importance of proprioceptive feedback in the control of coordinated arm and hand movement, studies focusing on upper limb proprioception in older populations are few and equivocal in their findings. This study focused on kinesthetic awareness about the wrist joint in healthy young and older adults. Passive movement detection thresholds (PMDTs) were twice as high in older compared to young participants. In contrast to previous findings demonstrating asymmetries in static position sense, PMDT did not differ between the dominant and non-dominant wrist joints nor did direction of joint displacement affect PMDT as has been reported for the lower limb. Preliminary analysis indicated that PMDT was significantly higher in older adults categorized as sedentary while active older adults were able to detect passive movement as well as young adults. These findings demonstrate that upper limb kinesthesia is impaired in older adults although the degree of impairment may be influenced by one's level of physical activity.
年龄相关的本体感觉能力变化及其对姿势不稳定的影响已得到充分证实。相比之下，尽管本体感觉反馈在控制协调的手臂和手部运动中具有重要作用，但针对老年人上肢本体感觉的研究很少，而且其研究结果也存在争议。本研究关注健康的年轻和老年人对腕关节的运动觉意识。与年轻参与者相比，老年人的被动运动检测阈值（PMDT）高出两倍。与先前的研究结果不同，先前的研究表明静态位置感存在不对称性，而 PMDT 在优势和非优势腕关节之间没有差异，关节位移的方向也不像下肢那样影响 PMDT。初步分析表明，被归类为久坐的老年人的 PMDT 明显更高，而活跃的老年人能够像年轻人一样检测到被动运动。这些发现表明，老年人的上肢运动觉受损，尽管其受损程度可能受到身体活动水平的影响。
