Exploring the relationship between visuospatial function and age-related deficits in motor skill transfer.

BACKGROUND: Generalizing learned information from one motor task to another is critical for effective motor rehabilitation. A recent study demonstrated age-related declines in motor skill transfer, yet findings from other motor learning studies suggest that visuospatial impairments may explain such aging effects. AIMS: The purpose of this secondary analysis was to test whether age-related deficits in motor skill transfer were related to low visuospatial ability. METHODS: Forty-two participants (mean ± SD age: 72.1 ± 9.9 years) were tested on an upper extremity dexterity task before and after 3 days of training on an upper extremity reaching task. Training and control data have been published previously. Prior to training, global cognitive status and specific cognitive domains (visuospatial/executive, attention, and delayed memory) were evaluated using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. RESULTS: Backward-stepwise linear regression indicated that the Visuospatial/Executive subtest was related to motor skill transfer (i.e., the amount of change in performance on the untrained motor task), such that participants with higher visuospatial scores improved more on the untrained dexterity task than those with lower scores. Global cognitive status was unrelated to motor skill transfer. DISCUSSION: Consistent with previous studies showing a positive relationship between visuospatial function and other aspects of motor learning, this secondary analysis indicates that less motor skill transfer among older adults may indeed be due to declines in visuospatial function. CONCLUSIONS: The present study highlights the potential utility of assessing older patients' visuospatial ability within motor rehabilitation to provide valuable insight into the extent to which they may learn and generalize motor skills through training.

Declines in motor transfer following upper extremity task-specific training in older adults.

BACKGROUND: Age-related declines in function can limit older adults' independence with activities of daily living (ADLs). While task-specific training maybe a viable approach to improve function, limited clinical resources prevent extensive training on wide ranges of skills and contexts. Thus, training on one task for the benefit of another (i.e., transfer) is important in geriatric physical rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to test whether motor transfer would occur between two functionally different upper extremity tasks that simulate ADLs in a sample of older adults following task-specific training. METHODS: Ninety community dwelling adults ages 43 to 94 years old performed two trials of a functional dexterity and functional reaching task at baseline, and were then assigned to one of two groups. The training group completed 3 days of task-specific training (150 trials) on the functional reaching task, whereas the no-training group received no training on either task. Both groups were re-tested on both tasks at the end of Day 3. RESULTS: No significant interactions were observed between group (training vs. no-training) and time (baseline vs. re-test) on the functional dexterity task (i.e. transfer task), indicating no difference in the average amount of change from baseline to re-test between the groups. However, post hoc bivariate linear regression revealed an effect of age on motor transfer within the training group. For those who trained on the functional reaching task, the amount of transfer to the dexterity task was inversely related to age. There was no significant relationship between age and motor transfer for the no-training group. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Results of our a priori group analysis suggest that functional reaching training did not, on average, transfer to the dexterity task. However, post hoc regression analysis showed that motor transfer was both experience- and age-dependent, such that motor transfer may decline with advanced age. Future research will consider how functional and cognitive aging influences transfer of motor skills across different activities of daily living.

Visuospatial function predicts one-week motor skill retention in cognitively intact older adults.

Motor learning declines with aging, such that older adults retain less motor skill after practice compared to younger adults. However, it remains unclear if these motor learning declines are related to normal cognitive changes associated with aging. The purpose of this study was to examine which cognitive domains would best predict the amount of retention on a motor task one week after training in cognitively intact older adults. Twenty-one adults ages 65-84 years old were assessed with Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, which assesses five cognitive domains (immediate and delayed memory, visuospatial/constructional, language, and attention). Participants also completed one training session of a functional upper extremity task, and were re-tested one week later. Stepwise regression indicated that the visuospatial domain was the only significant predictor of how much skill participants retained over one week, with a visual perception subtest explaining the most variance. Results from this study support previous work reporting that older adults' capacity for motor learning can be probed with visuospatial tests. These tests may capture the structural or functional health of neural networks critical for skill learning within the aging brain, and provide valuable clinical insight about an individual's unique rehabilitation potential.