This article describes the development and reliability testing of the Role Checklist, a two-part written inventory designed to identify past, present, and future roles and the degree to which individuals value each role. Roles included provide expectations and/or opportunities for occupational behavior, such as student, worker, volunteer, care giver, home maintainer, friend, family member, religious participant, hobbyist/amateur, and participant in organizations. To assess reliability, we administered the checklist twice to a group of 124 normal volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 79. Values obtained for kappa and weighted kappa, measures of agreement that correct for chance agreement, suggested moderate or better agreement for Parts 1 and 2 of the checklist. We concluded, therefore, that the checklist has satisfactory test/retest reliability.

The Brazilian Portuguese version of the Role Checklist was found content valid and reliable for persons with COPD and probably for the Brazilian population in general.

This study demonstrates a methodology for identifying differences in the experienced difficulty of activities of daily living (ADL) process actions of task performance between persons who havedementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and persons who are well. The information gathered indicates that persons with DAT havegreater ADL deficits, hypothesized to be related to underlying declarative memory, and relatively intact ADL skills, hypothesized to be related to underlying procedural memory. AbstractThe purpose of this study was to determine if persons with dementia of the Alzheimertype (VAT) differed from nondisabled older controls in theaciu-Kathryn Z. Cooke, MS, OTR, is from Boulder Manor

Roles appear to be affected by disability, whether physical or psychosocial in nature. If role participation is seen as part of the occupational functioning of the person, occupational therapy needs to address this area.

This study focused on the relative utility of the model of human occupation for occupational therapy assessment of persons having mental disorders. The organizational status of the human system and its relationship to adaptive level of functioning and degree of symptomatology were examined in a sample of 30 adult psychiatric patients. We used a six-test assessment battery developed for this study, which was based on the model of human occupation, to measure the organizational status of the following components of the human system: locus of control, goals, temporal orientation, interests, roles, and skills. Subtests of the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) Adoptive Behavior Scale and the Modified Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were used to measure adaptive level functioning and symptomatology, respectively. When we compared organizational status with psychiatric diagnosis and symptomatology, we found organizational status to be the more significant index of adaptive level of functioning.

BACKGROUND: In a cross-sectional study examining late effects of pediatric sarcoma therapy, long-term survivors were evaluated on their activities of daily living (ADL) performance. PROCEDURE: Thirty-two persons with Ewing sarcoma family of tumors, rhabdomyosarcoma, and non-rhabdomysarcoma-soft tissue sarcoma enrolled an average of 17 years after treatment. Participants were evaluated using the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) [1], a standardized observational evaluation of ADL task performance. Means and 95% confidence intervals for ADL motor and ADL process ability measures were calculated for four groups: 1) sarcoma survivors, 2) “well” adults matched for age and gender, 3) “well” adults matched for gender that were 10 years older; and 4) “well” adults matched for gender that were 20 years older. RESULTS: ADL motor ability was significantly lower for sarcoma survivors than for the age and gender matched comparison group (p<0.05). There was no significant difference between ADL motor ability of sarcoma survivors and the comparison group 10 years older, but sarcoma survivors had significantly better ADL motor ability (p<0.05) than the oldest comparison group (20 years older). Sarcoma survivors had significantly worse ADL process ability than the age matched group (p<0.05). There was no difference in ADL process ability between the sarcoma survivors and comparison groups that were 10 and 20 years older. CONCLUSIONS: This first report of a clinical evaluation of ADL limitation in pediatric sarcoma survivors treated with intensive multimodal cancer therapy suggests that influences on performance of daily life activities are more common than previously reported.

The purpose of this descriptive comparison study is to determine if persons with dementia of the Alzheimer's type differ from well older controls in the motor skills that affect the quality of performance of activities of daily living, and if so, to identify those specific activities of daily living motor skills that are retained or lost. The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills was administered to a proportionally matched sample of 567 persons with dementia of the Alzheimer's type and 378 community-living non-disabled controls, all of whom were 60 years or older. We found significant differences in mean activities of daily living motor ability between non-disabled controls, higher functioning participants with dementia of the Alzheimer's type, and lower functioning participants with dementia of the Alzhemier's type. Thus, diminished motor skills appear to affect the quality of activities of daily living task performance of persons with dementia of the Alzhemier's type, even those who are higher functioning. These findings suggest that motor skills may need to be addressed in intervention planning for persons with dementia of the Alzheimer's type.

Results suggest that elderly bereaved depressed individuals demonstrated ADL difficulty that responds positively to psychopharmacologic intervention.