Effects of age, sex and arm on the precision of arm position sense—left-arm superiority in healthy right-handers

Abstract

Position sense is an important proprioceptive ability. Disorders of arm position sense (APS) often occur after unilateral stroke, and are associated with a negative functional outcome. In the present study we assessed horizontal APS by measuring angular deviations from a visually defined target separately for each arm in a large group of healthy subjects. We analyzed the accuracy and instability of horizontal APS as a function of age, sex and arm. Subjects were required to specify verbally the position of their unseen arm on a 0-90° circuit by comparing the current position with the target position indicated by a LED lamp, while the arm was passively moved by the examiner. Eighty-seven healthy subjects participated in the study, ranging from 20 to 77 years, subdivided into three age groups. The results revealed that APS was not a function of age or sex, but was significantly better in the non-dominant (left) arm in absolute errors (AE) but not in constant errors (CE) across all age groups of right-handed healthy subjects. This indicates a right-hemisphere superiority for left APS in right-handers and neatly fits to the more frequent and more severe left-sided body-related deficits in patients with unilateral stroke (i.e. impaired APS in left spatial neglect, somatoparaphrenia) or in individuals with abnormalities of the right cerebral hemisphere. These clinical issues will be discussed.

Age-based model for metacarpophalangeal joint proprioception in elderly

“…This trend is well in line with some literature, suggesting proprioceptive processing advantages of the nondominant limb in some conditions,12,16,51–55 while others suggest gain differences of sensory-motor loops as an explanation 56. In contrast to those studies, other groups did not identify any difference between dominant and nondominant limb 18,22.…”

Randomized Control Trial Investigating the Effects of Kinesiology Tape on Shoulder Proprioception

“…Previous literature has evaluated the differences in gender, extremity dominance, and fatigue on proprioceptive differences. Schmidt et al 18 compared joint-position sense in the shoulder between different ages, genders, and arms; they did not nd any gender-speci c differences in arm-position sense, opposing the widely shared notion that males had better spatial skills than females. 19 In addition, age did not affect proprioception; however, that study resulted in more-accurate joint-position sense in left-extremity (nondominant) proprioception for right-hand-dominant participants.…”

“…19 In addition, age did not affect proprioception; however, that study resulted in more-accurate joint-position sense in left-extremity (nondominant) proprioception for right-hand-dominant participants. 18 Those authors believed that this was due to a superior hemispheric capacity of the healthy right hemisphere in this proprioceptive-spatial task. However, another study failed to nd a signi cant difference in proprioception between dominant and nondominant arms.…”

Proprioceptive Bimanual Test in Intrinsic and Extrinsic Coordinates

“…In order to fill this gap, a number of research groups developed methods based on robotics (Carey et al, 1996 ; Wilson et al, 2010 ; Squeri et al, 2011 ; Dukelow et al, 2012 ; Semrau et al, 2013 ), optoelectronics (Schmidt et al, 2013 ), and magnetic devices (Leibowitz et al, 2008 ) and different testing protocols were proposed (see Goble, 2010 for a review).…”