The Relationship Between Age, Strength and Movement Dexterity

The literature consistently shows that with increased age, movements tend to become slower (or decrease in dexterity). Some papers suggest that the relationship results from reduced strength with increased age, as there is good evidence that strength also reduces with increased age. Surprisingly, it appears that the relationship between age, strength and movement dexterity has received little
investigation, especially using accurate movement recording methods for upper‐limb actions. In the data reported here, we tested 107 adults between 18 and 86 years of age on a variety of fine motor ability movement dexterity measures. In each dependent measure, we first tested the relationships
between: (i) age and strength; (ii) age and movement performance, and; (iii) strength and movement performance, and then use multiple linear regression models to determine which of age and strength accounts for the greater variance. The results showed clear relationships between
increased age and decreased strength, increased age and reduced movement performance, and decreased strength and reduced movement performance. Standard multiple linear regression analyses showed that both age and strength made significant contributions to the data variance. Moreover, post‐hoc analyses showed that age explained more of the variance for steadiness and line tracking movement tasks, whereas strength explained more of the variance for aiming and tapping movement tasks. The data are discussed in terms of the relationships between age and strength on the resultant movement performance, and the importance of measuring strength when considering the effects of age on dexterity and movement performance.