Cognitive reserve in the recovery and rehabilitation of stroke and traumatic brain injury: A systematic review

Cognitive reserve (CR) is the brain's ability to cope with changes related to aging and/or disease. Originally introduced to explain individual differences in the clinical manifestations of dementia, CR has recently emerged as a relevant construct in stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). This systematic review aims to investigate whether CR could predict post-stroke and TBI clinical recovery and rehabilitation outcomes, and how different variables used to estimate CR (i.e., proxies) are related to the prognosis and effectiveness of rehabilitation in these clinical populations.