Prognostic Models for Changes in Memory Performance After Memory Training in Healthy Older Adults: a Systematic Review

Identifying individuals’ profiles of prognostic factors that predict improvements after nonpharmacological interventions such as memory trainings may help to not only predict individuals’ future outcomes after such intervention, but also tailor new trainings for individuals with specific characteristics. However, until now, no systematic review on prognostic models, defined as a set of multiple prognostic factors to predict a future outcome, for changes in memory performance after memory training exist. MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, CENTRAL, and PsycInfo were searched up to November 2019 to identify studies investigating prognostic models on verbal and non-verbal short- and long-term memory after conducting memory training in healthy older adults. The PROBAST tool was used to assess risk of bias. After screening n = 10,703 studies, n = 12 studies were included. These studies and the investigated statistical models are highly heterogeneous, so that conclusions are limited. However, one consistent result was that lower age combined with higher education seems to predict higher improvements after memory training. More studies on prognostic models for memory changes after memory training have to be conducted before clear conclusions which will help to tailor memory trainings to individuals’ profiles can be drawn. Registration: CRD42018105803, https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO