The main objectives of this study are to identify the dimensions of Ecological Validity (EV) within the definitions of this concept, understand how they are operationalized in neurocognitive tests,...

Objective: Recently, there has been a growing interest in operationalizing and measuring cognitive reserve (CR) for clinical and research purposes. This umbrella review aims to summarize the existing systematic and meta-analytic reviews about measures of CR. Method: A literature search was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and the guidelines of Aromataris et al. ( 2015 Aromataris, E. , Fernandez, R. , Godfrey, C. M. , Holly, C. , Khalil, H. , & Tungpunkom, P. (2015). Summarizing systematic reviews: Methodological development, conduct and reporting of an umbrella review approach. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 13(3), 132–140. https://doi.org/10.1097/XEB.0000000000000055 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] ) to identify the systematic reviews and meta-analysis involving the assessment of CR. The methodological quality of the papers included in this umbrella review was assessed with A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR-2) and Specialist Unit for Review Evidence (SURE). Results: Thirty-one reviews were identified, sixteen of which were systematic reviews, and fifteen were meta-analyses. Most of the reviews had a critically low quality, according to AMSTAR-2. The reviews included between two and 135 studies. Most of the papers focused on older adults, mainly those with dementia. CR was measured using one to six proxies, but most considered each proxy separately. The most assessed proxies of CR were education on its own, combined with occupation and/or engagement in activities or combined with parental education, bilingualism, and engagement in activities when four CR proxies were studied. Most of the studies included in higher quality reviews focused on three proxies, with education and engagement in activities being the most evaluated using CR questionnaires. Conclusion: Despite the growing interest in measuring CR, its operationalization did not improve since the last umbrella review in this field.

Introduction: Age-related changes in sensory functioning impact the activities of daily living and interact with cognitive decline. Given the interactions between sensory and cognitive functioning, combining multisensory integration (MI) assessment with the neuropsychological assessment of older adults seems promising. This review aims to examine the characteristics and utility of MI tasks in functional and cognitive assessment of older adults, with or without neurocognitive impairment. Areas covered: A literature search was conducted following the quality assessment of narrative review criteria. Results focused on tasks of detection, discrimination, sensory illusion, temporal judgment, and sensory conflict. Studies were not consensual regarding the enhancement of MI with age, but most studies showed that older adults had an expanded time window of integration. In older adults with mild cognitive impairment or major neurocognitive disorder it was a mediating role of the magnitude of visual-somatosensory integration between neurocognitive impairment and spatial aspects of gait. Expert opinion: Recently, some concerns have been raised about how to maximize the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment. Since most of our activities of daily living are multisensory and older adults benefit from multisensory information, MI assessment has the potential to improve the ecological validity of the neuropsychological assessment.

In recent years, ecological validity (EV) has attracted considerable interest from researchers in neuropsychology, particularly concerning neurocognitive assessment (Pinto et al., 2023a; Tarnanas e...

Among the diverse advantages that neuropsychological assessment via video teleconference (VTC) presents, increased accessibility and convenience are the most recognized. However, questions remain regarding the impact of VTC on the validity of neuropsychological testing. This systematic review aimed to (a) update the current knowledge of neuropsychological testing validity conducted via VTC in adults; (b) identify factors contributing to variability in results; and (c) recommend best practices for conducting these assessments. A total of 21 crossover studies were analyzed. The samples of these studies included healthy adults and individuals with cognitive impairments, with mean ages ranging from 23 to 81 years. Overall, the results point toward a strong agreement between VTC and in-person assessments. However, some variability was found across domains, with motor and timed tasks being particularly vulnerable to technical problems such as poor video/audio quality, unstable internet connections, limited familiarity with software and inadequacy of some devices. Additional challenges were identified when providing these services to individuals with cognitive impairments, specifically in tasks requiring clear verbal instructions or precise visual details. Further research is essential to establish standardized VTC protocols and administration guidelines, particularly for clinical populations, to mitigate variability and enhance the validity of VTC-based neuropsychological assessment.