Key result
Cognitive reserve operationalization remains unimproved with critically low methodological quality across most reviews.
Why the study?
There has been growing interest in operationalizing and measuring cognitive reserve for clinical and research purposes.
How is cognitive reserve operationalized and measured in existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses?
Systematic Review (n=31)
How is cognitive reserve operationalized and measured in existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses?
Despite growing interest, the operationalization of cognitive reserve has not improved since the last umbrella review, with most reviews being of critically low quality and relying primarily on education and activity engagement as proxies.
Undermines reliability of cognitive reserve evidence for clinicians; challenges field to standardize proxies and raise review quality.
Objective: Recently, there has been a growing interest in operationalizing and measuring cognitive reserve (CR) for clinical and research purposes. This umbrella review aims to summarize the existing systematic and meta-analytic reviews about measures of CR. Method: A literature search was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and the guidelines of Aromataris et al. (2015 Aromataris, E., Fernandez, R., Godfrey, C. M., Holly, C., Khalil, H., & Tungpunkom, P. (2015). Summarizing systematic reviews: Methodological development, conduct and reporting of an umbrella review approach. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 13(3), 132–140. https://doi.org/10.1097/XEB.0000000000000055[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to identify the systematic reviews and meta-analysis involving the assessment of CR. The methodological quality of the papers included in this umbrella review was assessed with A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR-2) and Specialist Unit for Review Evidence (SURE). Results: Thirty-one reviews were identified, sixteen of which were systematic reviews, and fifteen were meta-analyses. Most of the reviews had a critically low quality, according to AMSTAR-2. The reviews included between two and 135 studies. Most of the papers focused on older adults, mainly those with dementia. CR was measured using one to six proxies, but most considered each proxy separately. The most assessed proxies of CR were education on its own, combined with occupation and/or engagement in activities or combined with parental education, bilingualism, and engagement in activities when four CR proxies were studied. Most of the studies included in higher quality reviews focused on three proxies, with education and engagement in activities being the most evaluated using CR questionnaires. Conclusion: Despite the growing interest in measuring CR, its operationalization did not improve since the last umbrella review in this field.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Pinto et al. (2023) conducted a systematic review in Cognitive reserve (n=31). Cognitive reserve proxies (e.g., education, occupation, engagement in activities) was evaluated on Methodological quality and operationalization of cognitive reserve measures. An umbrella review of 31 systematic reviews and meta-analyses found that the operationalization of cognitive reserve has not improved, with most reviews having critically low methodological quality.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: