Study of efficiency of bimanual coordination among drivers

Abstract

Introduction: To perform day to day activities we need symmetric or asymmetric and coordinated actions by both the hands .These day to day activities can be anything from brushing your teeth, tying our shoe laces, driving, computer usage etc. Driving is an everyday example for this bimanual task which once learnt will be performed effortlessly in natural environment Materials and Methods: The study was conducted on 30 male vehicle drivers and 30 age matched male controls who are involved in administrative work and are not driving after taking informed consent. Institutional ethical clearance was obtained .Study was conducted at Sri Devraj Urs medical college, Kolar. The efficiency of bimanual coordination of upper limbs of both drivers and controls was assessed by using two hand coordination test apparatus with electrical chronoscope (Anand agencies,Pune.). The time (T) taken for completion of the task and the error (E) committed was recorded by the chronoscope and efficiency index (E.I) was calculated as E .I= (T-E)/T *100. Results: Results showed that there is no significant difference between efficiency index of drivers and controls with P value 0.343. Conclusion: The study concludes that there is no difference in efficiency of bimanual task performance between drivers and those involved in administrative work.