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This study aims toward an investigation and comparison of the digital force control and the brain activities of older adults and young groups during digital pressing tasks. A total of 15 young and 15 older adults were asked to perform force ramp tasks at different force levels with a custom pressing system. Near-infrared spectroscopy was used to collect the brain activities in the prefrontal cortex and primary motor area. The results showed that the force independence and hand function of the older adults were worse than that of the young adults. The cortical activations in the older adults were higher than those in the young group during the tasks. A significant hemodynamic between-group response and mild negative correlations between brain activation and force independence ability were found. Older adults showed poor force independence ability and manual dexterity and required additional brain activity to compensate for the degeneration.
Cheng, Chieh, Lin, Chen, Kuo, and Su are with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Chieh is also with Musculoskeletal Research Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Lin, Kuo, and Su are with Medical Device Innovation Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Hsu and Kuo are with the Department of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Hsu is also with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.