Caron, W., Boss, P., Mortimer, J. & Horbal, J. (1991). The Impact of Family Systems on Behavior Problems in Alzheimer's Disease. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, San Francisco, CA.

Abstract: This paper reports on a five year longitudinal study of the impact of dementia on caregivers and families. A limitation of the research on families of dementia patients is that much of the research only focuses on individual caregivers. It is important to broaden focus to include the entire family system. As part of an intensive procedure of conducting family interviews with our subject sample, 40 families were videotaped. Clinical ratings of the family system were taken using the Beaver's Timberlawn Rating scale. Because this is perhaps the first use of this scale with aging families, analysis was completed on both the reliability (intra-rater and inter-rater) and validity (convergent and discriminant) of the ratings. The results show that ratings of interpersonal structure and the emotional functioning of the family could be reliably and validly rated. These ratings were then subjected to correlational analysis using outcome measures of functioning in both the primary caregiver and patient. Results showed that the emotional climate of the family has relevance to understanding the caregiver's level of depression and the development of behavior problem in the patient. Implications for clinical interventions with the family are reviewed in light of these findings.

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