Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 5, 2026
Behavioral Assessment of Manual Dexterity in Non-Human Primates
Published on: November 11, 2011
Dexterity training improves manual precision in patients affected by essential tremor
Francesco Budini1, Madeleine M Lowery2, Michael Hutchinson3
1School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science, University College Dublin, Dublin.
Objective:
To evaluate the effect of a short-term dexterity-training program on muscle tremor and the performance of hand precision tasks in patients with essential tremor (ET).
Design:
Three testing sessions: baseline, after 4 weeks without any interventions (control), and after 4 weeks of dexterity-training carried out 3 times per week.
Setting:
Biomechanics research laboratory.
Participants:
Patients (N=8) with a diagnosis of ET.
Intervention:
Training program consisted of 12 dexterity training sessions where each session comprised 4 tasks involving both goal-directed manual movements and hand postural exercises.
Main Outcome Measures:
Testing included an ET-specific quality of life questionnaire and postural and kinetic tremor assessments. Each training session was scored to evaluate the performance.
Results:
After training, improvements were observed in the performance of the 2 goal-directed tasks (P<.01); however, postural and kinetic tremor did not change.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that dexterity training could be effective in increasing fine manual control during goal-directed movements, which are known to be the most compromised in this pathology. The absence of a decrease in tremor severity highlights the necessity for developing this novel training technique further, perhaps over a longer period of time. This study could provide guidelines for the prescription of self-directed and personalized home-based exercises and will offer clinicians a treatment that might be used as an adjuvant or an alternative to the classical pharmacotherapy.
