The Protected Survivor Model: Using Resistant Successful Cognitive Aging to Identify Protection in the Very Old

For some cardiovascular risk factors, association with risk for cognitive impairment observed in early old age is reduced, or paradoxically even reversed, as age of outcome increases. Successful cognitive aging is intact cognition in the oldest-old; we define resistant successful cognitive aging as successful cognitive aging despite high risk. The protected survivor model posits that a minority of the general population has a protective factor that mitigates the negative effect of a risk factor on successful cognitive aging for the unprotected majority.
Source: Medical Hypotheses - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Source Type: research