Personalized practice dosages may improve motor learning in older adults compared to "standard of care" practice dosages: A randomized controlled trial.

The study was a pilot and was designed to detect an overall group difference, not a difference between the two personalized practice groups. The general random-sequence finding relied on a follow-up comparison after the overall group test was not significant. The participants were community-dwelling older adults without frank neurologic deficits, so the results may not apply to patients recovering from stroke or other neurologic conditions. The plateau method was novel and has not been formally validated; the authors note that the main findings depend on whether this method truly identifies plateau. The number of trials and group assignment were highly related, so it is hard to separate the effect of practicing to plateau from simply doing more repetitions. Assessors were not blinded to group during testing, although the main response-time data were collected by the step mat and computer. Retention intervals varied from 2 to 4 days, and one participant had a 13-day interval. Four enrolled participants could not receive their assigned intervention, so the analysis included 41 rather than 45.

This work was partially supported by the University of Utah Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and the National Institutes of Health. The authors state that the funding sources were not involved in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or submission. The authors also declare no commercial or financial conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that plateau-based dosing is proven to improve motor learning. This was a small pilot, the overall group comparison for general random-sequence learning did not show a clear difference, and overpractice did not outperform stopping at plateau.