EVERYDAY PROBLEM-SOLVING AMONG INDIVIDUALS WITH ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

Loss of functioning on complex tasks of daily living is an early indic ator of dementia. The performance of 65 older adults with mild to mode rate levels of Alzheimer's disease was examined on the Everyday Proble ms Test for the Cognitively Challenged Elderly (EPCCE), self-report in ventories of functional performance, and a broad battery of clinical a nd neuropsychological measures. The EPCCE was designed to assess older adults on a set of complex tasks of daily living that involved not on ly global cognitive processes, but also higher-order executive functio ns. Participants solved an average of 45% of EPCCE tasks with signific ant differences in scores by disease severity. Performance was signifi cantly related to global cognitive functioning and disease severity, a nd in particular to executive functions. Significant additional varian ce was accounted for by these executive functions beyond the variance accounted for by global cognitive measures.