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Faculty of Medical Sciences

A Single Bout of Exercise Improves Visual Motor Learning in Healthy Older Adults

Haren, M. van (Martijn) (0017) A Single Bout of Exercise Improves Visual Motor Learning in Healthy Older Adults. thesis, Human Movement Sciences.

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Abstract

A single bout of exercise can boost learning a novel visual motor task in healthy young adults in the long-term. We investigated if the same effect can be established in healthy older adults. We also examined if there is a transfer effect from the trained hand to the untrained hand. In our study, we randomly divided thirty healthy older adults (aged 60 to 80 years) into three groups. Two groups either did a bout of exercise before or after visual motor training, the third group did only a bout of exercise. All visual motor training was done in the right hand. Visual motor skill was tested four times both in the right and left hand, at baseline, immediately after the visual motor training and exercise bout, 24 hours and 7 days after training. The control group showed no learning effect. The groups that performed the exercise bout showed similar acquisition immediately after training. During the retention tests the group that did the exercise bout immediately after visual motor training, scored significantly better. Only the group with the exercise bout after the training showed a significant improvement in the untrained hand. These findings suggest that the effects of a bout of exercise in healthy older adults are similar to the effects in healthy young adults. In healthy young adults more research is done when it comes to the timing of the bout of exercise to boost visual motor learning. The results from our study show that it is worth to explore the possibilities to boost visual motor learning with a single bout of exercise in healthy older adults.

Item Type: Thesis (UNSPECIFIED)
Faculty: Medical Sciences
Date Deposited: 18 May 2022 09:49
Last Modified: 18 May 2022 09:49
URI: https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3351

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