This article is part of the series Motor Control in the Elderly, edited by Silvestro Micera.

Commentary

Understanding age-related modifications of motor control strategies

Silvestro Micera^1,2

¹  Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems Lab, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy

²  Institute for Automation, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland

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Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2008, 5:26doi:10.1186/1743-0003-5-26

Published:	11 November 2008

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

The last century handed us over a considerably older population, particularly in the developed countries. Life expectancy, which in the industrialized countries at the beginning of the 1900's, was barely 47 years, has progressively increased and today is almost 80 years, with women in an advantageous position. Moreover, the real qualitative leap is represented by the conditions in which ageing takes place, conditions that till now were inconceivable for past generations, such as the level of education, the health status and the economic resources.