Finger Tapping Ability in Healthy Elderly and Young Adults
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Purpose: The maximum isometric force production capacity of the fingers decreases with age. However, little information is available on age-related changes in dynamic motor capacity of individual fingers. The purpose of this study was to compare the dynamic motor function of individual fingers between elderly and young adults using rapid single-finger and double-finger tapping. Methods: Fourteen elderly and 14 young adults performed maximum frequency tapping by the index, middle, ring, or little finger (single-finger tapping) and with alternate movements of the index-middle, middle-ring, or ring-little finger-pair (double-finger tapping). The maximum pinch force between the thumb and each finger, tactile sensitivity of each fingertip, and time taken to complete a pegboard test were also measured. Results: Compared with young subjects, the older subjects had significantly slower tapping rates in all fingers and finger-pairs in the tapping tasks. The age-related decline was also observed in the tactile sensitivities of all fingers and in the pegboard test. However, there was no group difference in the pinch force of any finger. The tapping rate of each finger did not correlate with the pinch force or tactile sensitivity for the corresponding finger in the elderly subjects. Conclusions: Maximum rate of finger tapping was lower in the elderly adults compared with the young adults. The decline of finger tapping ability in elderly adults seems to be less affected by their maximum force production capacities of the fingers as well as tactile sensitivities at the tips of the fingers.Keywords:
Tapping
Finger tapping
Ring finger
Middle finger
Little finger
Ring finger
Middle finger
Little finger
Hand surgery
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Finger tapping
Tapping
Middle finger
Ring finger
Little finger
Motor area
Premotor cortex
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The special clinical aspect of Dupuytren's disease is characterized by thickening and contracture of the fibrous pretendinous bands on the palmar surface of the hand and fingers. There are also presented firm nodules and atrophic grooves or pits in the pits in the skin of the palm of the hand. We analyzed the frequency of location of the contracture of the fibrous pretendinous bands, on one consecutive series of 200 cases. Only 2.5% of the cases were female. The bilaterality of Dupuytren's disease was evident in 53% of the cases. 26.5% of single affected hands were right and 20.5% were left. A percent of 73.5% of cases showed only one fibrous pretendinous band; 26.5% of cases showed association of two or three fibrous pretendinous band. The whole study material revealed the location of the fibrous pretendinous band as follows: 0.5% thumb; 1% index finger;15% middle finger; 87% ring finger and 25.5% little finger. The most common combination of affected fingers are in: 16.5% ring finger and little finger; 75% middle finger and ring finger; 2.5% middle finger, ring finger and little finger; 0.5% thumb and index finger. These data are important for the hand surgery. (Supported by CNMP 62054/2008).
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Ring finger
Little finger
Dupuytren's contracture
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To discuss the clinical effect of cross-finger flap with cutaneous branch of the ulnar digital finger on repairing the palmar soft tissue defect of the finger.From October 1996 to June 2004, cross-finger flaps were used to repair the palmar soft tissue defect of the finger in 25 cases (32 fingers ) with tendon or bone exposed. There were 18 males and 7 females, and their ages ranged from 13 to 45 years. Among them, 6 cases were incised injury, 8 cases were impact and press injury, 11 cases were crush injury; and 2 cases were thumb, 8 cases were index, 5 cases were middle finger, 3 cases were ring finger, 2 cases were little finger, 2 cases were index and middle finger, 2 cases were middle and ring finger, and 1 cases were index, middle, ring and little finger. The time from injury to diagnosis was 30 min to 48 h, and the size of the tissue defect was 1.5 cm x 1.0 cm to 4.1 cm x 2.0 cm. All cases were treated with emergent operation, and the sense of the flap was recovered by anastomosing the cutaneous branch of the ulnar digital finger and the distal digital nerve of injured finger. The flap pedicle was dissected 3 weeks later.Follow-up was conducted for 6 to 26 months and it showed that the cross-finger flaps all survived with full digital fingertip, satisfactory appearance, good function, and normal sense. The discrimination of two points was 5-8 mm.As it is easy to operate and with satisfactory appearance and good function restoration, cross-finger flap with cutaneous branch of the ulnar digital finger is effective in repairing the palmar soft tissue defect of the finger.
Middle finger
Ring finger
Little finger
Digital nerve
Hand injury
Trigger finger
Numerical digit
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Purpose: The maximum isometric force production capacity of the fingers decreases with age. However, little information is available on age-related changes in dynamic motor capacity of individual fingers. The purpose of this study was to compare the dynamic motor function of individual fingers between elderly and young adults using rapid single-finger and double-finger tapping. Methods: Fourteen elderly and 14 young adults performed maximum frequency tapping by the index, middle, ring, or little finger (single-finger tapping) and with alternate movements of the index-middle, middle-ring, or ring-little finger-pair (double-finger tapping). The maximum pinch force between the thumb and each finger, tactile sensitivity of each fingertip, and time taken to complete a pegboard test were also measured. Results: Compared with young subjects, the older subjects had significantly slower tapping rates in all fingers and finger-pairs in the tapping tasks. The age-related decline was also observed in the tactile sensitivities of all fingers and in the pegboard test. However, there was no group difference in the pinch force of any finger. The tapping rate of each finger did not correlate with the pinch force or tactile sensitivity for the corresponding finger in the elderly subjects. Conclusions: Maximum rate of finger tapping was lower in the elderly adults compared with the young adults. The decline of finger tapping ability in elderly adults seems to be less affected by their maximum force production capacities of the fingers as well as tactile sensitivities at the tips of the fingers.
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Finger tapping
Ring finger
Middle finger
Little finger
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Cleft hand is an anomaly in which the primary feature is oligodactyly, and it is considered an important congenital malformation. The authors have analyzed the cases they have handled and developed an independent classification based on the number of defective digits. It has been ascertained that the clinical symptoms correlate with the number of defective digits, and a regular pattern was observed. Study of cases considered to be in the main stream led us to feel that polydactyly of the middle finger is the developmental mechanism for this entity. That is, we feel that the polydactylous partner on the radial side is transpositioned to the index finger while the same on the ulnar side is transfered to the ring finger, which is followed by fusion of the respective rays resulting in the loss of the middle finger. Generally when refferring to the central fingers, it often the case that reference is being made to the index, middle and ring fingers. The kind of morphological anomalies that develop when cleft hand changes similar to the those of the middle finger occur in the index or ring finger are shown by schematic diagrams. As a result, in the case of index finger involvment, in addition to cleft hand of the index finger, there is development of Wassel VII type polydactyly of the thumb and single type triphalangeal thumb can be considered, while in the case of the ring finger, the occurence of polydactyly of the little finger in addition to cleft hand of the ring finger can be considered. Pursuit of such changes in the clinical cases from the standpoint of morphology or symptoms, indicates that many cases which had been difficult to diagnose in the past had findings which agreed with the above, which surved to confirm the presence of such a developmental course. That is, cleft hand is not a diagnosis to be assigned to a fixed morphological condition, but indicates a set scope, and from the star.dpoint of site it involves not only the middle finger, but it is obvious it can develop in any of the other central fingers as well. However, attention should be paid to the fact that the cleft hand changes which develop in the index and ring fingers present an entirely different morphology from that of the concept entertained in the past. The above developmental mechanism is an anomaly in the distribution of digital rays which occurs to the formation of polydactyly within the hand plate, considered to be based upon this anomaly. It is presumed to be a typical congenital anomaly which occurs during the hand plate formation stage. 81
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Polydactyly
Syndactyly
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Abstract The fingers in the adult human hand differ in length and in distal extent. The literature agrees that in the clear majority of males, the distal extent of the ring finger tends to be relatively greater (using the middle finger as standard) than the index finger. However, the results for females vary considerably, with some studies reporting that females show a similar pattern to that of males, while others suggest that the prevalence of a longer index finger is relatively or absolutely more common in females. We provide a review of the literature, and a set of data for both finger length and distal fingertip extent of the finger for a contemporary cohort of young adult females and males (n = 502). Finger length measures favor the ring finger of both sexes, with smaller between‐finger differences for females than for males. However, while the distal fingertip extent favors the ring finger of both hands in males, in females the left hand shows no significant differences, and the right hand shows a small index finger advantage. Thus, the sexual dimorphism in finger measures is more strongly expressed in the distal extent of fingertips than in the length of fingers. The sex differences in distal fingertip extent derive from the index finger only, with a lesser distal extent of the index finger, relative to the middle finger, in males than in females. Am J Phys Anthropol 117:209–217, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
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Middle finger
Sexual dimorphism
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New types of cylindrical handles such as pushrims with force signal sensors under four fingers (excluding the thumb) enable real-time gripping-status assessment. The mirrored change phenomenon of the index and ring fingers observed in linear grip tasks offers a new perspective on finger grouping. To evaluate the force contribution of index-ring finger pair in multi-finger force, 10 right-handed male participants with similar hand sizes were recruited to participate in sinusoidal function force-following tasks involving a cylindrical handle. The real-time signal of the grip force and individual finger force were recorded to analyze real-time changes in the finger force contribution (FC). Subsequently, the time-FC curves of individual and paired fingers were analyzed. Results show are as follows: (1) When the FC of the index-ring finger pair exceeded that of the middle-little finger pair, the gripping load was relatively low, and a smaller difference between the FCs of the index-ring finger pair and the middle-little finger pair indicated a smaller following error. (2) The FC of index-ring finger pair is a better (higher-linearity) parameter to assess gripping status. These findings show that the paired-finger FC is an adequate parameter for the gripping-status assessment.
Ring finger
Middle finger
Little finger
Linearity
SIGNAL (programming language)
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The fingers in the adult human hand differ in length and in distal extent. The literature agrees that in the clear majority of males, the distal extent of the ring finger tends to be relatively greater (using the middle finger as standard) than the index finger. However, the results for females vary considerably, with some studies reporting that females show a similar pattern to that of males, while others suggest that the prevalence of a longer index finger is relatively or absolutely more common in females. We provide a review of the literature, and a set of data for both finger length and distal fingertip extent of the finger for a contemporary cohort of young adult females and males (n = 502). Finger length measures favor the ring finger of both sexes, with smaller between-finger differences for females than for males. However, while the distal fingertip extent favors the ring finger of both hands in males, in females the left hand shows no significant differences, and the right hand shows a small index finger advantage. Thus, the sexual dimorphism in finger measures is more strongly expressed in the distal extent of fingertips than in the length of fingers. The sex differences in distal fingertip extent derive from the index finger only, with a lesser distal extent of the index finger, relative to the middle finger, in males than in females. Am J Phys Anthropol 117:209–217, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Ring finger
Little finger
Middle finger
Sexual dimorphism
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The purposes of this study were to assess differences among the index, middle, ring, and little fingers in dynamic motor function, using single-finger-tapping and double-finger-tapping tasks, and to investigate the effect of long-term training on dynamic motor function, using trained pianists. Four miniature strain gauge force transducers were used to measure the external force generated by each finger during tapping. Twelve healthy male adults and three female adult pianists tapped force transducers for 9 seconds as fast as possible, using their dominant right hands, while the other fingers contacted with the force transducers. In the single-finger tapping, we asked subjects to tap using each finger: index, middle, ring, and little finger. In the double-finger tapping, subjects performed alternating movements of a pair of fingers. A comparison among the four fingers in single-finger tapping revealed that the index and middle fingers attained significantly faster tapping, indicating the superiority of these two fingers over the other two fingers in terms of dynamic motor function. Changes in isometric forces generated by the non-tapping fingers accompanied the tapping finger movements; the correlation between tapping and non-tapping fingers was greater for the ring finger than for the other fingers. This suggests that the ring finger is more dependent on the movements of other fingers, especially neighboring fingers. Differences among the fingers in dynamic motor function could result from anatomical and neurophysiological factors. During two-finger movement, the dynamic motor function of each finger was affected by the combination of fingers. Finger combinations that are less used in ordinary life had lower tapping speeds than the other combinations. For pianists, tapping rates of the little and ring fingers in single-finger tapping were similar to those of the index and middle fingers. There was less accompanying force by non-tapping fingers of the pianists than of non-pianists. In double-finger tapping, tapping rates for any combination of fingers was nearly the same for the pianists. These suggested that long-term training could alter dynamic motor function of the fingers.
Finger tapping
Tapping
Middle finger
Ring finger
Little finger
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