Motor performance: normative data, age dependence and handedness

Quantitative, apparatus-based assessment of motor performance is a useful tool when addressing questions of therapy evaluation, quality control and early detection of movement disorders. Until now, few such methods have been sufficiently standardised to allow their routine employment in the clinic. Before assessing the impaired performance of patients, the first stage of standardisation is the determination of criteria of normal performance in healthy subjects. We have standardised a multidimensional test battery for motor performance of the upper extremities (Schoppe's "motorische Leistungs-Serie" = MLS). On the basis of the performance of 80 healthy controls, normative algorithms which allow correction of performance with reference to age were calculated. Further, our investigation provided information concerning the complexity of normal motor performance and the question of laterality (handedness). Standardised apparatus-based quantification of performance promises to be a valuable supplement to rating scales in the evaluation of patient motor skills, particularly in the early stages of their illness.