Maintenance of low isometric forces during prehensile grasping

A specially designed microcomputer-controlled force measurement system was tested in 24 normal adults. The task was to maintain a prescribed low isometric grip-force (2.5 Newton) under different visual feedback conditions. The performance variability across subjects and conditions was surprisingly low. Normal adults can maintain low isometric forces with great accuracy. No left/right hand differences could be found in the subjects investigated. These results seem to qualify our procedure for the clinical examination of neurologically impaired patients.