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

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posted on 2013-12-18, 00:00 authored by William W. N. Tsang, Jasmine C. Y. Kwok, Christina W. Y. Hui-Chan
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.

Funding

The authors thank The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for financial support of this study through an Area of Strategic Development Grant to C. W. Y. Hui-Chan and W. W. N. Tsang

History

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2013 William W. N. Tsang et al. 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.

Publisher

Hindawi Publishing Corporation

Language

  • en_US

issn

1741-427X

Issue date

2013-01-01

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