The purpose of this study was to examine the relative importance of physiological characteristics during firefighting performance, as assessed by the Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT). Participants included professional and volunteer firefighters, ages 18-39 (n=33). Muscle strength, muscle endurance, muscle power, body composition, aerobic capacity, anaerobic fitness, and the cardiovascular response to stairclimbing were assessed to determine the physiological characteristics of the participants. To quantify firefighting performance, the CPAT was administered by members of the fire service.Absolute and relative mean power during Wingate anaerobic cycling test (WAnT), relative peak power during WAnT, and absolute maximal oxygen uptake (VO 2 max) were significantly higher in those who passed the CPAT (n=18), compared to those who failed (n=15) (P < 0.01). Absolute and relative mean power during WAnT, fatigue index during WAnT, absolute VO 2 max, upper body strength, and the heart rate response to stairclimbing were all significantly related to CPAT performance time (all P < 0.01).However, absolute VO 2 max and anaerobic fatigue resistance during WAnT combined were the best predictors of total CPAT performance (Adj. R 2 = 0.817; P < 0.001).

We studied the finger interactions during maximum voluntary force (MVF) production in flexion and extension in children and adults. The goal of this study was to investigate the age-related changes and flexion-extension differences of MVF and finger interaction indices, such as finger inter-dependency (force enslaving (FE): unintended finger forces produced by non-instructed fingers during force production of an instructed finger), force sharing (FS; percent contributions of individual finger forces to the total force at four-finger MVF), and force deficit (FD; force difference between single-finger MVF and the force of the same finger at four-finger MVF). Twenty-five right-handed children of 6-10 years of age and 25 adults of 20-24 years of age participated as subjects in this study (five subjects at each age). During the experiments, the subjects had their forearms secured in armrests. The subjects inserted the distal phalanges of the right hand into C-shaped aluminum thimbles affixed to small force sensors with 200 of flexion about the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint. The subjects were instructed to produce their maximum isometric force with a single finger or all four fingers in flexion or extension. In order to examine the effects of muscle-force relationship on MVF and other digit interaction indices, six subjects were randomly selected from the group of 25 adult subjects and asked to perform the same experimental protocol described above. However, the MCP joint was at 800 of flexion. The results from the 20' of MCP joint flexion showed that (1) MVF increased and finger inter-dependency decreased with children's age, (2) the increasing and decreasing absolute slopes (N/year) from regression analysis were steeper in flexion than extension while the relative slopes (%/year) with respect to adults' maximum finger forces were higher in extension than flexion, (3) the larger MVF, FE, and FD were found in flexion than in extension, (4) the finger FS was very similar in children and adults, (5) the FS pattern of individual fingers was different for flexion and extension, and (6) the differences between flexion and extension found at 20 degrees MCP joint conditions were also valid at 80 degrees MCP joint conditions. We conclude that (a) the finger strength and independency increase from 6 to 10 years of age, and the increasing trends are more evident in flexion than in extension as indexed by the absolute slopes, (b) the finger strength and finger independency is greater in flexion than in extension, and (c) the sharing pattern in children appears to develop before 6 years of age or it is an inherent property of the hand neuromusculoskletal system. One noteworthy observation, which requires further investigation, was that FE was slightly smaller in the 80 degrees condition than in the 20 degrees condition for flexion, but larger for extension for all subjects. This may be interpreted as a greater FE when flexor or extensor muscles are stretched.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of finger strength training (ST) on finger strength, independence, force control, and adaptations in multifinger coordination. Thirty-three healthy, young (23.0+/-2.9 years) subjects were randomly assigned into 4 groups. Group 1 (G1) trained all fingers together, Group 2 (G2) trained individual fingers without restricting movements of the nontraining fingers, and Group 3 (G3) trained individual fingers while restricting the movement of the nontraining fingers. The control group (G0) did not undergo any training. A vertically hanging load was attached to a spring that passed through a pulley. The other end of the string extended to the horizontal plane and had thimblesattached to it. Subjects were asked to rest their forearm on the table and lift the load by inserting their fingers into the thimbles. The training protocol lasted 6 weeks. Identical experimental tests were conducted 4 times, biweekly, across the 6-week training. Force coordination and moment coordination, defined as synergies stabilizing the resultant force and the resultant moment of all finger forces, in a multifinger pressing task were quantified using the Uncontrolled Manifold (UCM) analysis. The UCM analysis allocates motor variability into two components, one in the null space of a motor task and the other perpendicular to the null space. During multifinger pressing tasks, multifinger coordination exists when the variability in the null space is greater than the variability in the subspace perpendicular to the null space. The multifinger coordination was quantified as the difference between the variance within the null space and that perpendicular to the null space, normalized by the total variance. Thus, the coordination measure in our analysis is a unitless variable. A greater coordination measure indicates better multifinger coordination. Moment-stabilizing multifinger coordination increased only in G1 (from 1.197+/-0.004 to 1.323+/-0.002, p<.01), and force-stabilizing coordination increased only in G3 (from 0.207+/-0.106 to 0.727+/-0.071, p<.01). Finger strength, measured by the maximal voluntary finger force of pressing 4 fingers, increased significantly in all training groups (from 103.7+/-3.1 N to 144.0+/-3.6 N for training groups, all p<.001). Finger-force errors, quantified by the deviations between the required force profiles (20% maximal voluntary force) presented to the subjects and the actual force produced, decreased significantly with ST for all the training groups (all p<.05). Finger independence also decreased significantly for all the training groups (p<.05). We conclude that the neuromuscular system adaptations to multifinger ST are specific to the training protocol being employed, yielding improvements in different types of multifinger coordination (i.e., coordination-specific ST), finger-force control, and finger strength and a decrease in finger independence. Finger independence, depending on the nature of the task, might or might not be favorable to certain ...

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This study aimed to continue our characterization of finger strength and multi-finger interactions across the lifespan to include those in their sixties and older. Building on our previous study of children, we examined young and elderly adults during isometric finger flexion and extension tasks. Sixteen young and sixteen elderly, gender-matched subjects produced maximum force using either a single finger or all four fingers in flexion and extension. The maximum voluntary finger force (MVF), the percentage contributions of individual finger forces to the sum of individual finger forces during four-finger MVF task (force sharing), and the non-task finger forces during a task finger MVF task (force enslaving), were computed as dependent variables. Force enslaving during finger extension was greater than during flexion in both young and elderly groups. The flexion-extension difference was greater in the elderly than the young adult group. The greater independency in flexion may result from more frequent use of finger flexion in everyday manipulation tasks. The non-task fingers closer to a task finger produced greater enslaving force than non-task fingers farther from the task finger. The force sharing pattern was not different between age groups. Our findings suggest that finger strength decreases over the aging process, finger independency for flexion increases throughout development, and force sharing pattern remains constant across the lifespan.

There is a growing trend for routine facial nerve monitoring in the setting of chronic ear surgery.

The aim of this study was to investigate the contralateral motor overflow in children during single-finger and multi-finger maximum force production tasks. Forty-five right handed children, 5-11 years of age produced maximum isometric pressing force in flexion or extension with single fingers or all four fingers of their right hand. The forces produced by individual fingers of the right and left hands were recorded and analyzed in four-dimensional finger force vector space. The results showed that increases in task (right) hand finger forces were linearly associated with non-task (left) hand finger forces. The ratio of the non-task hand finger force magnitude to the corresponding task hand finger force magnitude, termed motor overflow magnitude (MOM), was greater in extension than flexion. The index finger flexion task showed the smallest MOM values. The similarity between the directions of task hand and non-task hand finger force vectors in four-dimensional finger force vector space, termed motor overflow direction (MOD), was the greatest for index and smallest for little finger tasks. MOM of a four-finger task was greater than the sum of MOMs of single-finger tasks, and this phenomenon was termed motor overflow surplus. Contrary to previous studies, no single-finger or four-finger tasks showed significant changes of MOM or MOD with the age of children. We conclude that the contralateral motor overflow in children during finger maximum force production tasks is dependent upon the task fingers and the magnitude and direction of task finger forces.