OBJECTIVES The Groningen Activity Restriction Scale (GARS) is a non-disease-specific instrument to measure disability in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). It was developed in studies of Dutch samples consisting of elderly or chronically ill people. The psychometric properties of the GARS demonstrated in these studies were highly satisfactory. T...

INTRODUCTION Cognitive testing in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is essential for establishing diagnosis, monitoring progression, and evaluating treatments. Assessments should ideally be brief, reliable, valid, and reflect clinically meaningful changes. There is a lack of instruments that meet all these criteria. In the Capturing Changes in Cognition (Catch-Cog) study, we seek to correct these defici...

BACKGROUND The health of older adults declines over time, but there are many ways of measuring health. It is unclear whether all health measures decline at the same rate or whether some aspects of health are less sensitive to aging than others. METHODS We compared the decline in 13 measures of physical, mental, and functional health from the Cardiovascular Health Study: hospitalization, bed d...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the reliability of an instrument for classifying elderly people regarding their capacity for self-care, which was developed to assist occupational therapists in attending elderly people at primary healthcare units. METHODS Stability and internal consistency tests were carried out. To validate the instrument, tests were applied to a sample of 30 individuals aged 60 years ...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a community-based, low-intensity exercise programme in older adults from socio-economically and historically disadvantaged communities. DESIGN Three community centres were selected: two were allocated to the same 20-week, twice-weekly exercise program (EX1, n=38; EX2, n=32); and a third to relaxation classes (control/CTL; n=21...

OBJECTIVE Caregivers for patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) suffer from psychological and financial burdens. However, the results of the relationship between burden and cognitive function, performance of activities of daily living, and depressive symptoms have remained inconsistent. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine which factors are more significant predictors of heightened b...

BACKGROUND Informal caregivers of persons with dementia experience higher levels of chronic stress in the caregiving trajectory. The Internet provides diverse types of caregiver resources that may help ameliorate their stress and relevant negative outcomes. However, there is limited information about the prevalence and factors of using Internet-based resources for health- and caregiving-related...

In this systematic review, we investigated research literature evaluating the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions focusing on participation and performance in occupations related to paid and unpaid employment and education for people with serious mental illness. The review included occupation- and activity-based interventions and interventions addressing performance skills, aspe...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate, by age, the performance of 2 disability measures based on needing help: one using 5 classic activities of daily living (ADL) and another using an expanded set of 14 activities including instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), walking, getting outside, and ADL (IADL/ADL). METHODS Guttman and item response theory (IRT) scaling methods are used with a large (N = 2...

BACKGROUND Geographical information systems (GIS) have been used mainly in understanding infectious diseases and environmental threats in health research. Here, GIS was used to examine patterns of functional disability as one impact of chronic disease in American Indians and Alaska Natives. The study purpose was to create the first national mapping of functional disability for AIANs using the 2...