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Modeling cognitive reserve in healthy middle-aged and older adults: the Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 03:44 authored by Ward, DD, Mathew SummersMathew Summers, Saunders, NL, James VickersJames Vickers

Background: Cognitive reserve (CR) is a protective factor that supports cognition by increasing the resilience of an individual’s cognitive function to the deleterious effects of cerebral lesions. A single environmental proxy indicator is often used to estimate CR (e.g. education), possibly resulting in a loss of the accuracy and predictive power of the investigation. Furthermore, while estimates of an individual’s prior CR can be made, no operational measure exists to estimate dynamic change in CR resulting from exposure to new life experiences.

Methods: We aimed to develop two latent measures of CR through factor analysis: prior and current, in a sample of 467 healthy older adults.

Results: The prior CR measure combined proxy measures traditionally associated with CR, while the current CR measure combined variables that had the potential to reflect dynamic change in CR due to new life experiences. Our main finding was that the analyses uncovered latent variables in hypothesized prior and current models of CR.

Conclusions: The prior CR model supports multivariate estimation of pre-existing CR and may be applied to more accurately estimate CR in the absence of neuropathological data. The current CR model may be applied to evaluate and explore the potential benefits of CR-based interventions prior to dementia onset.

Funding

National Health & Medical Research Council

History

Publication title

International Psychogeriatrics

Volume

27

Issue

4

Pagination

579-589

ISSN

1041-6102

Department/School

Tasmanian School of Medicine

Publisher

Springer Publishing Co

Place of publication

536 Broadway, New York, USA, Ny, 10012

Rights statement

Copyright 2014 Springer Publishing Co

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Clinical health not elsewhere classified

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