Deans' stroke musings: Cognitive reserve protects executive function in older adults

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Saturday, August 6, 2022

Cognitive reserve protects executive function in older adults

Since you probably used up all your cognitive reserve just surviving your stroke, Ask your doctor for EXACT SPECIFICS ON THE EXERCISES TO DO. AND HOW TO MEASURE YOUR COGNITIVE RESERVE TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH TO PRESERVE EXECUTIVE FUNCTION.

I couldn't find a free version of Wide Range Achievement Test so ask your doctor for the test.

Cognitive reserve protects executive function in older adults

SAN DIEGO — Cognitive reserve acted as a protective factor that preserved executive function in older adults with benefits mitigated by depression level, according to a presentation at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

“Cognitive reserve operates as a protective mechanism on cognitive performance,” Loredana Frau, of the school of psychology at Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K., said during her presentation.

Older adult looking confused — Source: Adobe Stock.

Frau and colleagues sought to examine the relationship between cognitive reserve, depression and executive function in older adults over a 10-year period.

Their longitudinal study involved 416 individuals (290 cognitively stable [CUS], 97 cognitively unimpaired declining [CUD] and 29 with mild cognitive impairment [MCI]) from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention dataset. Participants were screened for cognitive reserve via the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-4), for depression by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), for executive functions by CFL, Digit Span and number sequencing tests. Screening for the APOE e4 gene was done through blood analysis. Hierarchical linear regression, controlling for age, gender, APOE and diagnosis (CUS, CUD, MCI) in model 1, cognitive reserve and depression in model 2 and CR-depression interaction in model 3 were performed. Multinomial logistic regression was utilized to predict conversion to CUD and MCI from a healthy baseline (CUS).

Results showed that, over the 10-year follow-up interval, cognitive reserve acted as a protective factor that preserved executive function; however, the beneficial effect of cognitive reserve on executive function was linked to mitigation of increasing symptoms of depression. In addition, data revealed that level of depression predicted a changeover from CUS to CUD, but depression and APOE e4 best predicted a conversion from CUS to MCI.

“These studies can be very important to analyze different proxies of cognitive reserve or motor disorders,” Frau stated in the presentation.