Abstract
Identifying predictors for general cognitive training (GCT) success in healthy older adults has many potential uses, including aiding intervention and improving individual dementia risk prediction, which are of high importance in health care. However, the factors that predict training improvements and the temporal course of predictors (eg, do the same prognostic factors predict training success after a short training period, such as 6 weeks, as well as after a longer training period, such as 6 months?) are largely unknown. Data (N = 4,184 healthy older individuals) from two arms (GCT vs. control) of a three-arm randomized controlled trial were reanalyzed to investigate predictors of GCT success in five cognitive tasks (grammatical reasoning, spatial working memory, digit vigilance, paired association learning, and verbal learning) at three time points (after 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months of training). Possible investigated predictors were sociodemographic variables, depressive symptoms, number of training sessions, cognitive baseline values, and all interaction terms (group*predictor). Being female was predictive for improvement in grammatical reasoning at 6 weeks in the GCT group, and lower cognitive baseline scores were predictive for improvement in spatial working memory and verbal learning at 6 months. Our data indicate that predictors seem to change over time; remarkably, lower baseline performance at study entry is only a significant predictor at 6 months training. Possible reasons for these results are discussed in relation to the compensation hypothesis. J Am Geriatr Soc 68:-, 2020.
Highlights
A serious problem faced by the growing older population is cognitive decline and the coherent loss of independence.[1]
Results seem inconsistent: some studies state that higher age is a positive predictor for cognitive training success in healthy older adults,[5,6] whereas others indicate that younger individuals benefit more from training.[7,8]
Our results indicate that cognitive baseline level at study entry was predictive for general cognitive training (GCT) gains in tests for spatial working memory and verbal recall after 6months, but not after 6weeks or 3months of training
Summary
A serious problem faced by the growing older population is cognitive decline and the coherent loss of independence.[1]. Possible prognostic factors for improvements after a cognitive training are sociodemographic factors, cognitive abilities at entry to the training, genetic parameters, blood factors, and personality traits.[5] results seem inconsistent: some studies state that higher age is a positive predictor for cognitive training success in healthy older adults,[5,6] whereas others indicate that younger individuals benefit more from training.[7,8] A recent systematic review on prognostic factors of changes after memory training in healthy older individuals showed that the tendency of the prognostic factor (the more of x/the more of y vs the more of x/the less of y) is dependent on the used dependent outcome measure of the studies (eg, whether post-test scores or changes scores were used in calculations as the dependent variable). Possible reasons for these results are discussed in relation to the compensation hypothesis
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