Affiliations: The Institute for Occupational Health, Tel-Aviv
University, Israel | Head Department of Occupational Medicine, Kupat-Holim,
Central District, Rehovot, Israel
Abstract: A heterogeneous population, with cultural and linguistic
differences, could benefit from nonverbal assessment. This was the case with
this research population, and in this constellation we felt that for continuity
to cognitive evaluation of industrial painters we had to add at least two tests
limited mainly to senso-motor aspects of human behavior. Moreover, this
practical strategy decreased workers' tension regarding testing circumstances
and yielded fewer possibilities for compensating an impaired function by use of
other, unaffected ones. Reaction Time and Finger Tapping were the tests we
chose because of their well-circumscribed elemental functional sensitivity to
neurotoxic exposures. The research design was cross-sectional. Study population
included 31 industrial painters who were exposed at work to organic solvents
and 31 unexposed workers. Workers after long term exposure to organic solvents
showed significantly higher response rate and decline in Finger Tapping scores
in comparison to unexposed workers. The results showed a significant negative correlation between
exposure index and number of finger tapping with dominant hand, non dominant
hand and altering with both hands indicating that the higher the exposure index
was the lower the number of finger tapping. It was also found that the affect
of age on Reaction Time and Finger Tapping of dominant hand was significant
among workers after long term exposure to organic solvents, whereas for the
unexposed workers those basic functions were unaffected.
Keywords: organic solvents, exposure, finger tapping, senso-motor function
