Fig 1.
POMS = Profile of Mood States; VAS = Visual Analogue Scale.
Fig 2.
A: The circuit for the kinetic tremor assessment; B: Load cell connected to the tweezers for the assessment of pinch force steadiness.
Fig 3.
Force output (upper) and first dorsal interosseous EMG (lower) raw data from a participant during the pinch task at 3 N target value. The area under the grey shade is the section of data used for the analysis. As can be seen, during the first seconds there is a phase of adjustment before the volunteer was able to set the force output at the desired target. For some volunteers this adjustment phase last longer, consequently we decided to analyse exclusively the last 15 seconds of each isometric contraction.
Fig 4.
Measurements during the intervention.
Individual (filled dots) and group average (transparent squares) values monitored in the intervention group (left column) and control group (middle column) for A-C: VAS; D-F: Oxygen saturation; G-I: Heart rate; J-L: Systolic pressure; M-O: Diastolic pressure. Right column group average ±SD in the intervention (light grey) and control group (dark grey). ‡p < .001 based on Breusch-Pagan test for heteroscedasticity, between J and K and between M and N. *** p < .001 based on a type 2 t-test. Hedges‘ g effect size: g = 1.97 for visual analogue scale, and g = 0.37 for oxygen saturation.
Table 1.
Group average results for the POMS questionnaire before and after mental fatigue.
Table 2.
Results of tremor and force steadiness.