Eye-hand Coordination of Elderly People Who Practice Tai Chi Chuan

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of motor control from Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) on eye-hand coordination in the elderly. Methods: Forty-two elderly people were recruited into this study. People in the TCC group (n = 22) had been practicing TCC regularly for more than 3 years. The control group (n = 20) comprised healthy and active elderly people. Subjects were asked to stroke target sensors in a test device with computer recording. There were three different target sensor sizes (1 cm, 1.5 cm and 2 cm in diameter) for different tests. For each target stroking, the following were recorded and calculated: start and end positions, duration of movement, pause time, peak velocity, and the time to reach peak velocity. Results: The TCC group showed significantly better results in decrease of displacement (p = 0.003), movement time (p = 0.002), pause time (p < 0.001), number of submovements (p = 0.001), and better skewness coefficients (p < 0.001) than the control group. However, the difference in the peak velocity of the TCC and control groups did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.026). Conclusion: The elderly TCC group had better results on the eye-hand coordination test than the control elderly group.

Keywords

• elderly
• eye-hand coordination
• motor control
• Tai Chi
• Tai Chi Chuan