Hall, Anna; Fauth, Elizabeth (Utah State University)
Faculty Advisor: Fauth, Elizabeth (Emma Eccles Jones College of Education & Human Services, Human Development and Family Studies Department)
Objective: Fine motor abilities (FMA) are essential to activities of daily living (ADL) that help older people remain independent. While some older adults with reduced FMA are aware of their impairment, others are not aware, which can be problematic if they do not seek ways to compensate for losses. I hypothesize that most older adults living in the community are aware of their losses, and self-reported FMA ability will correspond to actual performance of FMA tasks. Method: Data came from OCTO-Twin, a population-based dataset of twin pairs in Sweden aged 80 and older. We randomly selected one twin from each pair because twin status was not of interest to this study, and only included people who completed fine motor tasks (N = 262, 66.4% female; Mage = 83.27, SDage=2.90). Within a large battery of self-report and performance tasks, participants were asked their perceived ability to manipulate things with their hands (Cannot do at all, Big problem, Some problem, No problem). They were also timed (in seconds) on performing FMA tasks via ADL apparatus (putting coins in a slot, screwing in a light bulb, etc.). We defined someone as "slow" in FMA tasks if they were more than one standard deviation from the total mean (nslow=38, taking 80+ seconds). Results: Cross tabulations indicated, of "slow" participants, n=1 (2.6%) self-reported "cannot do at all", n=2 (5.3%) reported "big problem", n=10 (26.3%) reported "some problem", and n=25 (65.8%) reported "no problem". In comparison, of participants who were average or fast, 193 (85.8%) reported "no problem." Implications: Surprisingly, nearly 2/3 of people who were slow on FMA tasks self-reported that they had "no problems" with hand manipulation. Being unaware of deficiencies may lead to adverse effects via lack of compensation in ADL, but may also be mentally protective to help cope with physical losses.