The Pleasant Events Schedule-AD: Psychometric Properties and Relationship to Depression and Cognition in Alzheimer's Disease Patients

The Pleasant Events Schedule-AD (PES-AD) has been described as a useful tool for identifying pleasant activities for Alzheimer's disease patients. The current investigation provides psychometric data on the PES-AD, introduces a shortened, 20-item version, and examines the relationship between pleasant events, cognitive functioning, and depression. Both versions of PES-AD had good reliability and were significantly correlated with each other and with other relevant measures. As hypothesized, both depression and decreased cognitive functioning were associated with reduced frequency of enjoyable activity, and the reduction was significantly greater in AD patients who were depressed than in those who were not depressed, regardless of cognitive level.