Although family caregiving has been intensively studied in the past decade, little attention has been paid to the impact of end-of-life care on caregivers who are family members of persons with dementia or to the caregivers' responses to the death of the patient.

The authors examined the influence of positive aspects of caregiving (PAC) as a moderator of treatment outcome across 12 months in 1 of the original sites of the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health I project. They used multilevel random coefficients regression analysis to predict time-varying PAC, depression, behavioral bother, and daily care burden in Alzheimer's caregivers (N = 243; mean age = 60.89, SD = 14.19). They found that time-varying PAC was predicted by time-varying daily care burden. They also found significant effects of time-varying PAC for depression, behavioral bother, and daily care burden. Notably, a PAC x Phase x Treatment effect was found for daily care burden, such that individuals who endorsed less PAC benefited most from the intervention across 12 months. The tendency to positively appraise the caregiving experience (i.e., PAC) in response to chronic stressors such as Alzheimer's caregiving may affect individuals' responsiveness to, and benefit from, interventions, whereas only daily care burden affected the tendency to find enjoyment in caregiving across 12 months. Future intervention research should assess individual PAC in order to better tailor interventions to caregiving needs.

We studied the psychometric characteristics of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF) in an aged sample. One hundred and seven healthy white males and females, 50 to 79 years of age, received the ROCF and Taylor Complex Figure (TCF) as well as a screening battery of neuropsychological tests. Interrater, alternate form, test-retest, and internal consistency reliability were adequate to good for recall trials of the ROCF, with the copy trial generally lower in reliability. Validity procedures confirmed the sensitivity of the ROCF to Alzheimer's Disease, while factor analysis suggested that the ROCF loaded on a visuospatial perceptual/memory dimension. ROCF scores were significantly correlated with age and years of education, although not with sex. These results are generally supportive of the psychometric quality of the ROCF in an elderly sample. Once adequate normative data become available, the ROCF should prove a useful tool for clinicians in assessing elderly patients.