Comparison of implicit and explicit motor sequence learning in elderly

Motor learning in elderly is critical for their rehabilitation and exercise therapy. The aim of this research was to evaluate the role of explicit knowledge on accuracy and speed of learning of motor sequence in older adults.Subjects and In this interventional study, we compared motor learning performance in two elderly groups in explicit condition (N=15) and implicit condition (N=15). ANOVA repetitive measure was used for comparing response times and errors in different blocks and paired t-test was used for comparing regular and irregular blocks and independent t- test was used for comparing implicit and explicit conditions. The results showed that decrease in both explicit and implicit group and error decreased in both explicit and implicit group. Decrease of serial reaction time in implicit group is better than explicit group. Both implicit and explicit learning can be used for sequence learning in elderly but implicit condition is better than explicit condition.