Decline in Bimanual Coordination Performance Among Older Adults with Frailty

Shoya Fujikawa, Shun Sawai, Ryosuke Yamamoto, Yusuke Shizuka, Kotaro Nakagawa, Shin Murata, Akio Goda, Hideki Nakano
Purpose:

This study aimed to clarify the characteristics of bimanual coordination in frail older adults.


Methods:

The study involved 312 community-dwelling older adults, divided into robust, pre-frail, and frail groups using the Kihon Checklist. All participants performed bimanual coordination tasks, consisting of an in-phase task of tapping with the thumb and index finger as quickly as possible on both hands simultaneously, and an anti-phase task of alternating tapping with both hands. Each task was performed for 15 seconds with eyes closed. Eight features were measured: total traveling distance, mean and standard deviation of local maximum distance, slope of approximate line of local maximum points, number of taps, mean and standard deviation of tap intervals, and frequency of taps. Three-way ANOVA was used to compare each feature among groups, hands, and tasks, with a significance level of 5%.



Results:

Based on the Kihon Checklist, 129 participants were classified as robust, 136 as pre-frail, and 47 as frail. Statistical analysis revealed no significant interaction between group, side, and task factors across the eight measured metrics (p > 0.05). However, the total traveling distance showed a significant main effect for the group factor, with the frail group demonstrating a significant reduction in movement distance compared to the robust group (p 0.05).



Conclusion(s):

Frailty is characterized by increased vulnerability due to decreased muscle strength and endurance, which leads to slower movement speed. As a result, the bimanual coordination speed likely decreased in frail older adults, reducing total traveling distance. Furthermore, interhemispheric interactions via the corpus callosum play an important role in bimanual coordination, and structural changes in the corpus callosum are significant in frail older adults. Therefore, the decline in bimanual coordination performance in frail older adults may be attributed to structural and functional changes in the corpus callosum.



Implications:

The results of this study suggest that bimanual coordination could be applied as an assessment index for frailty.


Funding acknowledgements:
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP23K10417, JP23K19907, JP24K23764.
Keywords:
frail
bimanual coordination
finger tapping
Primary topic:
Older people
Second topic:
Health promotion and wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity
Third topic:
Primary health care
Did this work require ethics approval?:
Yes
Name the institution and ethics committee that approved your work:
the Research Ethics Committee of Kyoto Tachibana University
Provide the ethics approval number:
24 - 30
Has any of this material been/due to be published or presented at another national or international conference prior to the World Physiotherapy Congress 2025?:
No

Back to the listing