Patterns of Motor Impairment in Normal Aging, Mild Cognitive Decline, and Early Alzheimer' Disease

Abstract

In order to determine the relationship between cognitive dysfunction and motor behavior in older adults, 41 cognitively normal elderly (NL), 25 cases exhibiting mild cognitive impairment (MI), and 25 patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) were examined using a broad array to motor/psychomotor and cognitive tests. Relative to the NL group, MI individuals (at risk for future decline to AD) performed worse on tasks involving fine and complex motor function (e.g., tracking and manual dexterity). AD patients also exhibited motor dysfunction on tasks assessing relatively more rudimentary motor control. Motor tasks were able to distinguish NL vs MI and NL vs mild AD individuals as effectively as cognitive tests of memory and language. These results indicate that motor impairment is an important aspect of cognitive decline in older adults. Motor/psychomotor assessments may be comparably sensitive to traditional tests of cognitive function in identifying persons affected by the earliest stages of AD pathology.

Cholinesterase inhibitors affect brain potentials in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

“…Compared to healthy older controls, both amnestic MCI and Alzheimer's disease show disturbances on tasks that assess fine (e.g., peg board placement) and complex (e.g., rapid alternating hand movements) motor movements (Kluger et al, 1997). Similarly, prolonged and less accurate arm movements are reported in amnestic MCI subjects (Yan and Dick, 2006).…”

“…The changes of somatosensory cortical functions found in the early stage of MCI may contribute to the alterations of sensory or motor functions in both MCI (Dick et al, 2003;Kluger et al, 1997) and dementia (Goldman et al, 1999;Pettersson et al, 2005). Compared to healthy older controls, both amnestic MCI and Alzheimer's disease show disturbances on tasks that assess fine (e.g., peg board placement) and complex (e.g., rapid alternating hand movements) motor movements (Kluger et al, 1997).…”

“…We hypothesized that there would be increases in somatosensory but not in visual sensory potentials beyond those accompanying normal aging (Desmedt and Cheron, 1980) based on the demonstration of altered motor functions in both MCI and Alzheimer's disease ( Kluger et al, 1997;Goldman et al, 1999;Dick et al, 2003;Pettersson et al, 2005) whereas visual disorders are typically not expressed until late in the course of Alzheimer's disease. We also examined whether somatosensory and visual cortical activities in MCI were affected by ChEIs, one of the therapies used for MCI and Alzheimer's disease.…”

Vision for Motor Performance in Virtual Environments Across the Lifespan

“…This change in processing is partially due to neurophysiologic changes within the CNS resulting in a decrease in the available resources of the processing pool (Craik & McDowd, 1987;Schut, 1998). Loss of attentional resources also contributes to this slowing of central processing (Goble et al, 2008;Kluger et al, 1997;Sparrow, Begg, & Parker, 2006). This in itself results from a multifactorial process relating to neurophysiologic changes in the CNS and degradation of afferent information arriving from compromised peripheral receptors (Chaput & Proteau, 1996;Goble et al, 2008).…”

Role of tea catechins in prevention of aging and age-related disorders

“…Several age-associated deficits in motor and cognition activities of brain are reported, with their occurrence both in the presence and absence of chronic disorders like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PKD) (Kluger et al, 1997;Joseph et al, 1983;West, 1996;Youdim and Joseph, 2001). The human brain, especially its hippocampus, dorsomedial striatum and prefrontal cortex, plays an important role in spatial learning, memory and cognition (McDonald and White, 1994;Devan et al, 1996).…”