The effects of different proxies of cognitive reserve on episodic memory performance: aging study in Iran

Objective: The main aim of the present study is to investigate the association between different measures of cognitive reserve including bilingualism, mental activities, type of education (continuous versus distributed), age, educational level, and episodic memory in a healthy aging sample. Methods: Four hundred and fifteen participants aged between 50 and 83 years participated in this cross-sectional study and were assessed with the Psychology Experimental Building Language Test battery tapping episodic memory. Demographic variables were collected from a questionnaire designed by the research team. Results: Compared to participants with continuous type of education, those with distributed type performed better in tests of episodic memory, while no differences were found between bilingual and monolingual participants. We additionally found that age negatively predicts episodic memory, whereas playing mind teasers and educational level have positive relationships with episodic memory. Conclusions: Our results indicate that higher cognitive reserve, as measured by distributed educational training, higher level of education, and doing regular mental activities, is associated with better performance on episodic memory tasks in older adults. These results were discussed in connection with successful aging and protection against memory decline with aging.