Validating the Capability for Measuring Age-Related Changes in Grip-Force Strength Using a Digital Hand-Held Dynamometer in Healthy Young and Elderly Adults

Background. Grip-force performance can be affected by aging, and hand-grip weakness is associated with functional limitations of dasily living. However, using an appropriate digital hand-held dynamometer with continuous hand-grip force data collection shows age-related changes in the quality of hand-grip force control may provide more valuable information for clinical diagnoses rather than merely recording instantaneous maximal hand-grip force in frail elderly adults or people with a disability. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to indicate the construct validity of the digital MicroFET3 dynamometer with Jamar values for maximal grip-force assessments in elderly and young adults and confirmed age-related changes in the maximal and the quality of grip-force performance using the MicroFET3 dynamometer in elderly people. Methods. Sixty-five healthy young (23.3±4.5 years) and 50 elderly (69.5±5.8 years) adults were recruited and asked to perform a validity test of the grip-force maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) using both the dominant and nondominant hands with a Jamar dynamometer and a MicroFET3 dynamometer. Results. A strong correlation of maximal grip-force measurements was found between the MicroFET3 dynamometer and Jamar standard dynamometer for both hands in all participants (p<0.05). Although, the results showed that a lower grip force was measured in both hands by the MicroFET3 dynamometer than with the Jamar dynamometer by 49.9%~57% (p<0.05), but confidently conversion formulae were also developed to convert MicroFET3 dynamometer values to equivalent Jamar values for both hands. Both dynamometers indicated age-related declines in the maximum grip-force performance by 36.7%~44.3% (p<0.05). We also found that the maximal hand-grip force values generated in both hand by the elderly adults were slower and more inconsistent than those of the young adults when using the MicroFET3 dynamometer. Conclusions. This study demonstrated that the digital MicroFET3 dynamometer has good validity when used to measure the maximal grip force of both hands, and conversion formulae were also developed to convert MicroFET3 dynamometer force values to Jamar values in both hands. Comparing with the Jamar dynamometer for measuring grip force, the MicroFET3 dynamometer not only indicated age-related declines in the maximum grip-force performance but also showed slower and more inconsistent maximal hand-grip strength generation by the elderly.

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Bone and Muscle Crosstalk in Aging

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology ◽

10.3389/fcell.2020.585644 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Author(s):

Chen He ◽

Wenzhen He ◽

Jing Hou ◽

Kaixuan Chen ◽

Mei Huang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Bone Mineral Density ◽

Skeletal Muscle ◽

Bone Cells ◽

The Elderly ◽

Extracellular Vesicle ◽

Mineral Density ◽

Age Related ◽

Age Related Changes

Osteoporosis and sarcopenia are two age-related diseases that affect the quality of life in the elderly. Initially, they were thought to be two independent diseases; however, recently, increasing basic and clinical data suggest that skeletal muscle and bone are both spatially and metabolically connected. The term “osteosarcopenia” is used to define a condition of synergy of low bone mineral density with muscle atrophy and hypofunction. Bone and muscle cells secrete several factors, such as cytokines, myokines, and osteokines, into the circulation to influence the biological and pathological activities in local and distant organs and cells. Recent studies reveal that extracellular vesicles containing microRNAs derived from senescent skeletal muscle and bone cells can also be transported and aid in regulating bone-muscle crosstalk. In this review, we summarize the age-related changes in the secretome and extracellular vesicle-microRNAs secreted by the muscle and bone, and discuss their interactions between muscle and bone cells during aging.

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Life-span changes to adults' language: Effects of memory and genre

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716400008419 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 49-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 107

Author(s):

Susan Kemper ◽

Donna Kynette ◽

Shannon Rash ◽

Kevin O'Brien ◽

Richard Sprott

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Digit Span ◽

The Elderly ◽

Vocabulary Test ◽

Elderly Adults ◽

Clause Structure ◽

Syntactic Structures ◽

Current Health ◽

Age Related ◽

Language Effects

ABSTRACTThree different language samples were collected from a group of young adults, 18 to 28 years of age, and a group of elderly adults, 60 to 92 years of age: an oral questionnaire eliciting information about the adults' background, education, and current health and activities; an oral statement describing the person they most admired; and a written statement recounting the most significant event in their lives. In addition, the WAIS vocabulary and digit-span tests were administered to the adults. Age-related changes in the length, clause structure, and fluency of the adults' oral answers and oral and written statements were investigated. There was an overall decrement in the complexity of adults' oral and written statements attributable to an age-related loss of left-branching clauses which occurred in all three language samples. Correlations between the length, clause, and fluency measures from the language samples and the education, health, and WAIS vocabulary and digit-span tests revealed that better-educated adults scored higher on the WAIS vocabulary test, produced longer utterances, and used more right-branching clauses, and that adults with greater memory capacity, as measured by the WAIS Digits Backward test, produced more complex utterances and used more right- and left-branching clauses. Judges found the statements from the elderly adults to be more interesting and clearer than those from the young adults. This finding suggests that there is a trade-off between producing complex syntactic structures and producing clear and interesting prose.

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Imitation of complex syntactic constructions by elderly adults

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716400007578 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 277-287 ◽

Cited By ~ 74

Author(s):

Susan Kemper

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Relative Clauses ◽

The Elderly ◽

Syntactic Processing ◽

Elderly Adults ◽

Complex Sentences ◽

Age Related ◽

Processing Demands ◽

Processing Abilities ◽

Embedded Clause

ABSTRACTElderly adults (70 to 89 years) and young adults (30 to 49 years) were asked to imitate complex sentences involving embedded gerunds, wh-clauses, that-clauses, and relative clauses. The young adults were able to imitate accurately or correctly paraphrase the sentences regardless of the length, position, or type of embedded clause. The elderly adults could accurately imitate or paraphrase short constructions. The elderly adults were unable to imitate or paraphrase correctly long constructions, especially those in which the embedded clause was sentence-initial. The pattern of results demonstrates an age-related decline in syntactic processing abilities due, perhaps, to the increased processing demands of the long or sentence-initial constructions.

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Vision and Perception Deficits Associated With Dementia

Perspectives on Gerontology ◽

10.1044/gero13.1.4 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 4-11

Author(s):

Monica Robinson

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Diabetic Retinopathy ◽

Low Vision ◽

The Elderly ◽

Elderly Individual ◽

Age Related Macular Degeneration ◽

Age Related ◽

Vision Deficits ◽

Age Related Changes

Abstract Sensory declines represent a broad category of normal age-related changes that can lead to diminished quality of life for the elderly individual, loss of independence, and increased costs for society as a whole (National Institute of Health, [NIH, 1999). As an individual ages, some of the most prevalent sensory losses are those related to vision and perception. According to the National Eye Institute (NEI, 2004), 3.3 million adult Americans have low vision or blindness and this figure is estimated to increase to 5.5 million by 2020. Vision deficits increase with age; sixty-nine percent of the population who are legally blind are those individuals 80 years old and older. Furthermore, as the population ages, so does the prevalence of multiple age-related diagnoses or conditions that effect vision and/or perception, such as diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, hemianopsia secondary to a stroke, and dementia.

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Age-related changes in the motor planning strategy slow down motor initiation in elderly adults

10.1101/2020.05.18.101774 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nikita S. Frolov ◽

Elena N. Pitsik ◽

Vladimir A. Maksimenko ◽

Vadim V. Grubov ◽

Anton R. Kiselev ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Reaction Time ◽

Motor Planning ◽

Fine Motor ◽

Dominant Hand ◽

Elderly Adults ◽

Brain Functions ◽

Age Related ◽

Motor Initiation ◽

Age Related Changes

AbstractAge-related changes in the human brain functioning crucially affect the motor system, causing increased reaction time, low ability to control and execute movements, difficulties in learning new motor skills. The lifestyle and lowered daily activity of elderly adults, along with the deficit of motor and cognitive brain functions, might lead to the developed ambidexterity, i.e. the loss of dominant limb advances. Despite the broad knowledge about the changes in cortical activity directly related to the motor execution, less is known about age-related differences in the motor initiation phase. We hypothesize that the latter strongly influences the behavioral characteristics, such as reaction time, the accuracy of motor performance, etc. Here, we compare the neuronal processes underlying the motor planning of fine motor tasks between elderly and young subjects. We demonstrate that aging significantly reduces the speed of motor initiation in the dominant hand task due to the different motor planning strategies employed by elderly and young adults. Based on the results of the whole-scalp electroencephalography (EEG) analysis, we suggest that young adults tend to use the efficient and fast mechanism of motor working memory. In contrast, elderly adults involve a more demanding sensorimotor integration process similar to the non-dominant hand task.

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Monitoring Health Parameters of Elders to Support Independent Living and Improve Their Quality of Life

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21020517 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 517

Author(s):

Ilia Adami ◽

Michalis Foukarakis ◽

Stavroula Ntoa ◽

Nikolaos Partarakis ◽

Nikolaos Stefanakis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Independent Living ◽

Elderly Population ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Chronic Illnesses ◽

Age Related ◽

Self Sufficiency ◽

Health And Well Being

Improving the well-being and quality of life of the elderly population is closely related to assisting them to effectively manage age-related conditions such as chronic illnesses and anxiety, and to maintain their independence and self-sufficiency as much as possible. This paper presents the design, architecture and implementation structure of an adaptive system for monitoring the health and well-being of the elderly. The system was designed following best practices of the Human-Centred Design approach involving representative end-users from the early stages.

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Existential/spiritual resources and the subjective quality of life experiences among elderly adults

Polish Journal of Applied Psychology ◽

10.1515/pjap-2015-0046 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 123-168 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Magdalena Kapała

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

The Elderly ◽

Subjective Quality ◽

Modern World ◽

Life Questionnaire ◽

Elderly Adults ◽

Subjective Quality Of Life ◽

Spiritual Resources ◽

Two Phases

AbstractMy paper presents the results of a research study on the relationship between existential/spiritual resources, that is, spiritual sensitivity (a disposition to experience spirituality, manifested in the embracement of the nature of things in the transcendent and final perspective, in moral sensitivity, and the ability to find meaning in paradoxical and limiting situations), spiritual sensitivity components and subjective quality of life (a generalized attitude to one’s own life mode, in the four existential dimensions: psychophysical, psycho-social, subjective, and metaphysical). Study subjects were older adults (60+, n = 522) living in the current, dynamic, uncertain and fluid modern world conditions. The study had two phases – quantitative and qualitative (narrative interviews). To measure the phenomena, the Spiritual Sensitivity Inventory (Straś-Romanowska, Kowal, & Kapała, 2013) and the Quality of Life Questionnaire (Straś-Romanowska, Oleszkowicz, & Frąckowiak, 2004) were used. The results obtained confirmed a strong mutual relationship between spiritual resources and quality of life, also providing an answer to some questions about the nature of spiritual sensitivity, and its integrating, pro-development and pro-health role in the elderly adults’ life in the post-modern era.

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Abstract T P136: Potential Contributors to the Declining Impact of Stroke Risk Factors with Age: Implications for Stroke Epidemiology in the Elderly

Stroke ◽

10.1161/str.45.suppl_1.tp136 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 45 (suppl_1) ◽

Author(s):

George Howard ◽

Mary Cushman ◽

Maciej Banach ◽

Brett M Kissela ◽

David C Goff ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Risk Factor ◽

Stroke Risk ◽

Multivariable Analysis ◽

The Elderly ◽

Stroke Risk Factors ◽

Age Related ◽

Increased Risk ◽

The Impact ◽

Age Related Changes

Purpose: The importance of stroke research in the elderly is increasing as America is “graying.” For most risk factors for most diseases (including stroke), the magnitude of association with incident events decreases at older ages. Potential changes in the impact of risk factors could be a “true” effect, or could be due to methodological issues such as age-related changes in residual confounding. Methods: REGARDS followed 27,748 stroke-free participants age 45 and over for an average of 5.3 years, during which 715 incident strokes occurred. The association of the “Framingham” risk factors (hypertension [HTN], diabetes, smoking, AFib, LVH and heart disease) with incident stroke risk was assessed in age strata of 45-64 (Young), 65-74 (Middle), and 75+ (Old). For those with and without an “index” risk factor (e.g., HTN), the average number of “other” risk factors was calculated. Results: With the exception of AFib, there was a monotonic decrease in the magnitude of the impact across the age strata, with HTN, diabetes, smoking and LVH even becoming non-significant in the elderly (Figure 1). However, for most factors, the increasing prevalence of other risk factors with age impacts primarily those with the index risk factor absent (Figure 2, example HTN as the “index” risk factor). Discussion: The impact of stroke risk factors substantially declined at older ages. However, this decrease is partially attributable to increases in the prevalence of other risk factors among those without the index risk factor, as there was little change in the prevalence of other risk factors in those with the index risk factor. Hence, the impact of the index risk factor is attenuated by increased risk in the comparison group. If this phenomenon is active with latent risk factors, estimates from multivariable analysis will also decrease with age. A deeper understanding of age-related changes in the impact of risk factors is needed.

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Regenerative Medicine Approaches for Age-Related Muscle Loss and Sarcopenia: A Mini-Review

Gerontology ◽

10.1159/000479278 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 63 (6) ◽

pp. 580-589 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Juan Diego Naranjo ◽

Jenna L. Dziki ◽

Stephen F. Badylak

Keyword(s):

Regenerative Medicine ◽

Treatment Options ◽

The Elderly ◽

Signaling Molecules ◽

Current Treatment ◽

Muscle Physiology ◽

Age Related ◽

Increased Risk ◽

And Function ◽

Age Related Changes

Sarcopenia is a complex and multifactorial disease that includes a decrease in the number, structure and physiology of muscle fibers, and age-related muscle mass loss, and is associated with loss of strength, increased frailty, and increased risk for fractures and falls. Treatment options are suboptimal and consist of exercise and nutrition as the cornerstone of therapy. Current treatment principles involve identification and modification of risk factors to prevent the disease, but these efforts are of limited value to the elderly individuals currently affected by sarcopenia. The development of new and effective therapies for sarcopenia is challenging. Potential therapies can target one or more of the proposed multiple etiologies such as the loss of regenerative capacity of muscle, age-related changes in the expression of signaling molecules such as growth hormone, IGF-1, myostatin, and other endocrine signaling molecules, and age-related changes in muscle physiology like denervation and mitochondrial dysfunction. The present paper reviews regenerative medicine strategies that seek to restore adequate skeletal muscle structure and function including exogenous delivery of cells and pharmacological therapies to induce myogenesis or reverse the physiologic changes that result in the disease. Approaches that modify the microenvironment to provide an environment conducive to reversal and mitigation of the disease represent a potential regenerative medicine approach that is discussed herein.

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Quantification of Hand Grip Force under Dynamic Conditions

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193129303701015 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 37 (10) ◽

pp. 715-719 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Katherine R. Lehman ◽

W. Gary Allread ◽

P. Lawrence Wright ◽

William S. Marras

Keyword(s):

Grip Force ◽

Wrist Flexion ◽

Range Of Movement ◽

Ulnar Deviation ◽

Dynamic Conditions ◽

Radial Deviation ◽

Hand Grip ◽

Flexion Extension ◽

Maximum Grip ◽

Lower Grip

A laboratory experiment was conducted to determine whether grip force capabilities are lower when the wrist is moved than in a static position. The purpose was to determine the wrist velocity levels and wrist postures that had the most significant effect on grip force. Maximum grip forces of five male and five female subjects were determined under both static and dynamic conditions. The dominant wrist of each subject was secured to a CYBEX II dynamometer and grip force was collected during isokinetic wrist deviations for four directions of motion (flexion to extension, extension to flexion, radial to ulnar, and ulnar to radial). Six different velocity levels were analyzed and grip forces were recorded at specific wrist positions throughout each range of movement. For flexion-extension motions, wrist positions from 45 degrees flexion to 45 degrees extension were analyzed whereas positions from 20 degrees radial deviation to 20 degrees ulnar deviation were studied for radial-ulnar activity. Isometric exertions were also performed at each desired wrist position. Results showed that, for all directions of motion, grip forces for all isokinetic conditions were significantly lower than for the isometric exertions. Lower grip forces were exhibited at extreme wrist flexion and extreme radial and ulnar positions for both static and dynamic conditions. The direction of motion was also found to affect grip strength; extension to flexion exertions produced larger grip forces than flexion to extension exertions and radial to ulnar motion showed larger grip forces than ulnar to radial deviation. Although, males produced larger grip forces than females in all exertions, significant interactions between gender and velocity were noted.

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