Water consumption and hydration status affects fine motor skills in schoolchildren.

• TITLE: Water consumption and hydration status affects fine motor skills in schoolchildren.
• AUTHOR: Booth P, Dawkins L, Moore D, Gentile-Rapinett G, Edmonds C.
• REFERENCE: Nutr Hosp. 2015 Dec 1;32(s02):10276.
• YEAR: 2015

INTRODUCTION:
Previous studies have shown that hydration status and water consumption affects cognitive performance but, to date, little research has looked at the effects on fine motor skills.

OBJECTIVE:
To investigate whether water consumption improved performance on tasks that require predominately fine motor skills.

METHOD:
In Study 1, 57 children (mean age 10.11 years) were tested individually. In one occasion children were given a drink of water (500 millilitres) and on the other occasion they were not. They completed a selection of cognitive tasks and a finger-tapping task pre and post-intervention; a urine sample was collected and urine osmolality (Uosm) analysed. In Study 2, 86 children (mean age 10.1 years) were tested pre and post-intervention in a drink or no drink condition on a bead threading, finger tapping, handwriting and Figure-Ground task.

RESULTS:
In Study 1, the number of finger taps were significantly higher on the occasion that children had a drink compared to when they did not (p<0.05). Exploratory analysis suggests that this effect was moderated by Uosm. In Study 2, having a drink of water increased handwriting speed (p<0.05) and there was a trend for finger-tapping speed to increase but handwriting quality and Figure-Ground performance was not affected.

CONCLUSION:
Fine motor speed increased when children had a drink of water. This finding is important because children spend a large proportion of the school day using fine motor skills and handwriting skill can predict future academic performance.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26615246