ASSESSMENT OF PSYCHOMOTOR FUNCTION BY CRITICAL FLICKER FUSION FREQUENCY: CORRELATION WITH AGE.

Dr. Vijetha P.*, Dr. T. Jeevaratnam, Dr. K.N. Maruthy and T.S.Deepti

ABSTRACT

Background: Critical flicker fusion frequency (CFFF) is accepted indicator of the cortex arousal level. It is used as an indicator of physical human fatigue, mental workload and cognitive function as well. In medicine and physiology, experimental evidences demonstrated the relationships between the CFFF level and individual human attributes like age, sex, intelligence and job experience. As age advances several physiological changes occur in the body, both physical and psychomotor changes. In this study, CFFF was used as an objective test to assess cognitive function to study age related changes of psychomotor skills. Aim: The present study was aimed to assess correlation between CFFF and age. Materials and methods: CFFF was measured in 70 adult normal subjects, both male and female, by CFFF measuring instrument, an in-house built standard electronic module using sweep-gen software. Results: r-value is 0.110986 for 40 – 80 years age group (Group – I) and r-value is -0.33074 for 60 -80 years age group (Group – II). Conclusion: CFFF values increased with age in normal adults of 40-60 years age group but CFFF decreased with age in elderly age group(>60 years) suggesting an impairment of psychomotor skills in old age.

Keywords: Critical flicker fusion frequency, normal adults, cognitive aspects of ageing.