Effects of force level and task difficulty on force control performance in elderly people.

As the proportion of people over 60 years of age rises continuously in westernized societies, it becomes increasingly important to better understand aging processes and how to maintain independence in old age. Fine motor tasks are essential in daily living and, therefore, necessary to maintain. This paper extends the existing literature on fine motor control by manipulating the difficulty of a force maintenance task to characterize performance optima for elderly.