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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1386981
This article is part of the Research Topic Cognitive Impairment and Physical Function in Older Adults View all 31 articles

The effect of juggling on the proprioceptive and attentional abilities among older women

Provisionally accepted
Jakub Malik Jakub Malik *Natalia Główka Natalia Główka Wojciech Jelonek Wojciech Jelonek Janusz Maciaszek Janusz Maciaszek
  • Poznan University of Physical Education, Poznan, Poland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: A decrease in awareness of body segments in space can be affected by age-related changes in attentional abilities. However studies have reported that physical activity can improve proprioception among older adults, but proven forms of activity that have such potential are rare. Juggling seems to be a promising form of activity for proprioception, as it requires both high attention and high sensory accuracy. The first hypothesis assumed that the juggling intervention had a positive impact on the ability of the ipsilateral and contralateral position matching of the elbow joint without visual input, whereas the second hypothesis assumed that there would be a correlation between cognitive abilities and the efficiency of the joint position sense. Methods: Twenty older women (69.95±4.58) participated in a study based on repeated measures with a Latin square design. Measurements were performed at three time points (TPs; baseline, juggling, control). Ipsilateral and contralateral elbow joint position matchings without visual or verbal feedback of accuracy were used for the proprioception assessment. Vienna Test System protocols for attention and reaction time variables were used. Results: Although significant changes occurred between the baseline and other TPs measurements of joint position sense accuracy, a juggling effect was not observed. Low and medium correlations of the decision time and the variability of choice reaction time on the accuracy were observed for contralateral accuracy. For ipsilateral accuracy, a relationship was observed only with handedness. Attention test scores did not correlate with joint position sense accuracy. Conclusions: The effect of juggling on changes in position matching ability has not been shown. Cognitive abilities, like decision speed and stability of choice reaction time, may contribute to more accurate position matching among older women. Trial registration: The study was registered retrospectively at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT06108713).

    Keywords: Attention, Bilateral exercises, dual-task, Joint position matching, physical activity, Reaction Time

    Received: 16 Feb 2024; Accepted: 13 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Malik, Główka, Jelonek and Maciaszek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jakub Malik, Poznan University of Physical Education, Poznan, Poland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.