#gojackgo

4. Older Adulthood - 70 years old

This is Jack, a 70-year-old retired male.  He has developed some common conditions that can come with aging, these include; osteoarthritis which led to a double knee replacement, and scoliosis of the spine. These conditions have prevented him from being as active as he once was due to discomfort and pain.  He has never played basketball recreationally, but his career as an electrician kept him in adequate physical condition during his working years.  He displays many of the expected characteristics that come with later walking.  He demonstrates visible out-toeing, decreased velocity and stride length, and more postural sway than the younger participants.

      When dribbling, it is important to keep a low stance to lower your center of gravity and create a wide base of support.  This stance creates a smaller distance for the ball to travel between the floor and the hand, but it requires you to bend your knees and drop your hips.  As you can see with Jack, he bends at the waist, which is bad for his lower back (placing stress on his extensor muscles: iliocostalis, spinalis, and longissimus) and is also detrimental to his balance.  Age related hyperkyphosis is also evident in his posture, caused by weakness of these extensor muscles.  Jack is able to keep the ball in front of him but only when looking at the object, this is related to changes in his vision and vestibular systems as he ages.  It is important to note that after the age of 60, the amount of light reaching the eye is about half of that of a younger participant (such as Jamie) the lens yellows which produces glare, and depth perception decreases significantly.

Dribbling is a coincidence-anticipation task - he is anticipating the completion of a movement (elbow extension) to coincide with the arrival of the basketball.   In order to anticipate the arrival of the ball accurately, his perception of the speed of the projectile is important.  As you can see from the video, when Jack is dribbling he does not always contact the ball in its center, this is because older adults have lower accuracy when it comes to coincidence-anticipation tasks involving faster moving objects.  Jack is able to reach the ball in order to create another bounce, but his strength comes from an added shoulder movement.  In younger adults, successful dribbling is often achieved by elbow extension and wrist flexion alone.  The extra shoulder movement seen in Jack’s performance is due to the significant strength declines in the upper limbs that appear after the age of 65. 

References:

Haywood, K.M., & Getchell, N. (2014). Life Span Motor Development (6th Ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics

Liardi, V. (2016). Ch 4, 5, 7, 9, 12. (Powerpoint Slides).