Motor Performance

In the motor-control literature on older adults, many of the behavior decrements discussed thus far are linked to physical and cognitive declines. It has been suggested by several researchers that visual guidance of movement may partially, if not completely, compensate for many of the changes that occur with age when accuracy is required. Visual monitoring of a movement may compensate for sensorimotor information lost during the movement due to decrements in this information at the peripheral or central level. Since feedback information takes additional time to process and integrate, movements are typically slow and more variable. Furthermore, older adults in the absence of vision (when it is occluded) increase MTs and variability, suggesting that the visual monitoring of movements is important to the speed and accuracy of movement performance. In the absence of vision, older adults produce shorter primary submovements compared to young controls, even with ample practice. This suggests that older adults are reliant on visual feedback to control their movements. Researchers have suggested that this dependence is a consequence of one or more limitations in processing, planning, force production and regulation, and proprioception.