ABSTRACT
AD is a degenerative disease that produces a variety of symptoms associated
with dementia. These include memory loss for recent events, impaired con solidation of new information, and a severe impairment in tasks requiring de layed recall of information (see Backman, 1992; Gamp & McKitrick, 1992; McKitrick, Gamp, & Black, 1992). These memory impairments are pervasive in their disruption of the lives of persons with AD and may contribute to the stress of caregivers dealing with AD. Gamp and McKitrick (1992) wrote:
Extremely poor performance for delayed recall is, in fact, one of the best di agnostic markers of early AD (Larrabee, Youngjohn, Sudilovsky, & Grook, 1993; Reisberg, et al., 1989). Under such circumstances, it would seem that PM would be severely impaired in AD. This “obvious” conclusion might explain the general lack of research conducted on PM performance in AD. Most in formation concerning PM performance in this population is anecdotal, such as for caregivers who complained to the authors that the person with AD fails “to remember to do the simplest tasks when they should.” Persons with AD who fail at PM tasks complain about not being given instructions by caregivers or forgetting where their reminder messages were written down.
