Psychomotor performance in lung transplant recipients: simple reaction time

Many transplant recipients report difficulty completing fine motor activities such as eating, writing and manipulating buttons. These impairments are thought to stem from the immunosuppressive medications being taken by these patients. The purpose of this study was to examine central and peripheral processes and the force regulation involved in producing appropriate and quality movement in lung transplant recipients.

Fifty-one right-handed subjects were recruited from 3 study groups (17 in each group): Group 1, lung transplant recipients (LTR); Group 2, subjects with advanced emphysema; and Group 3, healthy adult controls. Each subject completed a fine motor and gross motor simple reaction time task. Central processing was examined by measuring pre-motor time, peripheral processing was measured by motor time, and force regulation was measured using movement time. A 3 x 5 multivariate analysis of co-variance (MANCOVA) was utilized to examine group differences, with the performance on the 6-minute walk test serving as co-variant. Correlation analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between medication and psychomotor performance.

The lung transplant recipient group exhibited a longer movement time and a trend toward longer pre-motor times. There was also a significant relationship between medication and movement time.

The results support the hypothesis that lung transplant recipients have deficits in psychomotor performance, which is consistent with the literature showing that immunosuppressive medications and hypoxia have adverse effects on skeletal muscle. This line of research is relevant to the restoration of function and improvement in quality of life of LTR.