Chronic stress has been shown to negatively impact declarative memory. In the proposed study, we hypothesize that we will find such impairments in older caregivers of dementia individuals, a population that has not been included before. Little research has investigated the results of chronic stress on non- declarative memory and the proposed study will be the first to study these effects on older caregivers. In particular, we hypothesize that two non-declarative tasks, the alternating serial reaction time task (ASRT) and the contextual cueing task (CC), will be differentially impacted by chronic stress due to different underlying neural mechanisms. We predict a dissociation such that older caregivers will be impaired on CC, but unimpaired on ASRT. This project has great health relevance in that older caregivers of dementia individuals undertake enormous cognitive responsibility when caring for others (e.g., remembering doctor appointments, adapting to evolving course of the disease, making financial decisions); therefore, it is crucial to preserve and maximize their cognitive integrity so that they are able to care for themselves and the recipients of their care. The proposed project also has significant public health relevance as caregivers of dementia patients provide the majority of long-term health care in the United States. More than half of all diagnosed Alzheimer's patients continue to live in home settings, and 80 to 90 percent of these individuals rely on family members for care. By 2050,14 million Americans are expected to have Alzheimer's disease and we can also expect to see an equally dramatic increase in the number of older individuals who will become their caregivers. Promoting the health of older caregivers is of potential benefit not only to these individuals and those they care for, but to society as well. ? ? ? ?
