Older adults took longer to release their grip in a task
Older adults began releasing their grip after an average 355.1 milliseconds, compared with 314.8 milliseconds in younger adults.
Limit: The sample was small, with only 36 adults
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
This cross-sectional observational study compared 36 right-handed, community-dwelling adults: 18 aged 20–40 and 18 aged 62–93. The younger group included 16 women and two men; the older group included 15 women and three men. Participants completed 80 trials, squeezing a sensor for one cue and withholding their grip for another. Their target was 5% of maximum grip strength based on age- and sex-specific reference values. They released when the cue disappeared.
Older adults took longer to start and finish releasing their grip. Release lasted 394.9 milliseconds on average, versus 325.9 milliseconds in younger adults. Starting to squeeze and reaching the target force did not differ significantly between groups. Older adults also squeezed more often when instructed not to. The authors interpreted this pattern as consistent with difficulty suppressing grip, rather than general slowing of movement.
Why it matters
Precise grip control helps people handle everyday objects. The authors suggested that release timing may complement grip-strength assessments when characterizing age-related movement decline.
Caveats
This cross-sectional comparison did not track changes within individuals as they aged. The small, mostly female sample excluded people reporting neurological disorders or musculoskeletal conditions that could interfere with the task, limiting applicability to those groups.
The paper
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital; The University of Texas at El Paso
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, Jun 25, 2026, Open access
