Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm

Background. This cross-sectional study examined the effect of aging on performing finger-pointing tasks involving choices and whether experienced older Tai Chi practitioners perform better than healthy older controls in such tasks. Methods. Thirty students and 30 healthy older controls were compare...

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Main Authors:	Tsang, William W. N., Kwok, Jasmine C. Y., Hui-Chan, Christina W. Y.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588207/

id	pubmed-3588207
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-35882072013-03-09 Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm Tsang, William W. N. Kwok, Jasmine C. Y. Hui-Chan, Christina W. Y. Research Article Background. This cross-sectional study examined the effect of aging on performing finger-pointing tasks involving choices and whether experienced older Tai Chi practitioners perform better than healthy older controls in such tasks. Methods. Thirty students and 30 healthy older controls were compared with 31 Tai Chi practitioners. All the subjects performed a rapid index finger-pointing task. The visual signal appeared randomly under 3 conditions: (1) to touch a black ball as quickly and as accurately as possible, (2) not to touch a white ball, (3) to touch only the white ball when a black and a white ball appeared simultaneously. Reaction time (RT) of anterior deltoid electromyogram, movement time (MT) from electromyogram onset to touching of the target, end-point accuracy from the center of the target, and the number of wrong movements were recorded. Results. Young students displayed significantly faster RT and MT, achieving significantly greater end-point accuracy and fewer wrong movements than older controls. Older Tai Chi practitioners had significantly faster MT than older controls. Conclusion. Finger-pointing tasks with a choice paradigm became slower and less accurate with age. Positive findings suggest that Tai Chi may slow down the aging effect on eye-hand coordination tasks involving choices that require more cognitive progressing. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2013 2013-02-17 /pmc/articles/PMC3588207/ /pubmed/23476699 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/653437 Text en Copyright © 2013 William W. N. Tsang et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Tsang, William W. N. Kwok, Jasmine C. Y. Hui-Chan, Christina W. Y.
spellingShingle	Tsang, William W. N. Kwok, Jasmine C. Y. Hui-Chan, Christina W. Y. Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm
author_facet	Tsang, William W. N. Kwok, Jasmine C. Y. Hui-Chan, Christina W. Y.
author_sort	Tsang, William W. N.
title	Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm
title_short	Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm
title_full	Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm
title_fullStr	Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm
title_full_unstemmed	Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm
title_sort	effects of aging and tai chi on a finger-pointing task with a choice paradigm
description	Background. This cross-sectional study examined the effect of aging on performing finger-pointing tasks involving choices and whether experienced older Tai Chi practitioners perform better than healthy older controls in such tasks. Methods. Thirty students and 30 healthy older controls were compared with 31 Tai Chi practitioners. All the subjects performed a rapid index finger-pointing task. The visual signal appeared randomly under 3 conditions: (1) to touch a black ball as quickly and as accurately as possible, (2) not to touch a white ball, (3) to touch only the white ball when a black and a white ball appeared simultaneously. Reaction time (RT) of anterior deltoid electromyogram, movement time (MT) from electromyogram onset to touching of the target, end-point accuracy from the center of the target, and the number of wrong movements were recorded. Results. Young students displayed significantly faster RT and MT, achieving significantly greater end-point accuracy and fewer wrong movements than older controls. Older Tai Chi practitioners had significantly faster MT than older controls. Conclusion. Finger-pointing tasks with a choice paradigm became slower and less accurate with age. Positive findings suggest that Tai Chi may slow down the aging effect on eye-hand coordination tasks involving choices that require more cognitive progressing.
publisher	Hindawi Publishing Corporation
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588207/
_version_	1611959422716739584

Effects of Aging and Tai Chi on a Finger-Pointing Task with a Choice Paradigm

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