Cognitive reserve relates to executive functioning in the old–old

Abstract

Cognitive reserve (CR) is known to reduce or even protect against the negative effects of aging on cognitive functioning. Nonetheless, little is known about how CR influences the relationship between different cognitive abilities and age in the old–old. The goal of the present study was, therefore, to test the hypothesis whether, in the old–old, CR still modifies the relationship between age and cognitive functioning. Eighty-three adults (aged 71–94) without mild cognitive impairment or dementia residing in residential care facilities completed a detailed neuropsychological test battery. CR was estimated using a combination of educational attainment and an estimation of verbal intelligence. Moderation analyses revealed a significant effect for fluency and a trend for flexibility, showing that the negative relationship between age and cognitive performance is reduced as the level of CR increases. These results demonstrate that CR still influences the relationship between age and executive functions in adults of advanced age.

Verbal intelligence is a more robust cross-sectional measure of cognitive reserve than level of education in healthy older adults

“…This is a novel finding as the most robust composite—occupational complexity and verbal intelligence—has never (to the best of our knowledge) been used previously as a CR proxy, likely due to the predominant use of education both as an individual proxy and in composites. The next most robust composite of education and verbal intelligence has been widely used [ 42 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 59 , 77 , 111 ] and our results support a previous positive association between this composite and episodic memory, controlling for GM volume [ 59 ]. A speculative explanation for the greater robustness of occupational complexity and verbal intelligence as a composite may be that occupational complexity and verbal intelligence are less strongly correlated with each other than educational attainment and verbal intelligence (see Fig.…”

“…Possible scores on the NART, in TILDA, ranged from 0 to 50 and on the AMNART, in CR/RANN, from 0 to 45. While the NART is often used to provide a measure of premorbid intelligence, we have labelled NART scores here as verbal intelligence in line with previous cognitive reserve studies [42,77]. The NART is "effectively a test of knowledge acquisition" [78] that may reflect the exposure to various educational and cognitive experiences across the lifespan [79][80][81][82].…”

Can our life resources support successful aging?

“…The studies following the former approach, in most general terms, show that higher level of CR favourably affects both general cognitive functioning (Clare et al, 2017) and its specific domains (Perneczky et al, 2019). This positive effect was found e.g., in memory (Lavrencic et al, 2018), semantic and phonological fluency, subscales of Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Clock Drawing Test (Grasso et al, 2021) and in executive functions (Oosterman, Jansen, Scherder, Kessels, 2021). This is significant since the latter capacities affect performance in other cognitive domains and in daily life (e.g., independence).…”

Virtual Reality-based Cognitive Intervention for Enhancing Executive Functions in Community-dwelling Older Adults

“…Moreover, cognitive training aiming at enhanced EFs yields a reduction in functional decline and immediate and long-term improvements in cognitive performance during everyday activities (Nguyen et al, 2019b;Willis et al, 2006). Furthermore, in longitudinal studies, EF improvement in older adults shows protective effects (or cognitive reserve) against cognitive decline (Holtzer et al, 2012;Ihle et al, 2020;Oosterman et al, 2021). Accordingly, several commercially available cognitive games have focused on enhancing EFs of older adults without cognitive impairment (Bonnechère et al, 2020).…”