Chapter 11 - Assessment with Late-Life Families: Issues and Instruments

Abstract

Families play a key role in the lives of older adults, and formal assessment can help identify resources and vulnerabilities in the late-life family system. This chapter highlights the range of issues that can influence the focus, implementation, and interpretation of an assessment with late-life families. Although there are few instruments that are designed specifically for late-life families, or adapted for them with sufficient validation, this chapter reviews only assessment models and instruments that may be useful. With current instruments, assessment with late-life families is like cooking in someone else's kitchen: they have all the basic implements and ingredients a kitchen should have but perhaps not exactly what one needs. Many of the instruments described are not been used with late-life families, and most have not been validated with ethnic/racial minority groups or diverse family structures. Still, it is striking that again and again, across different models of family functioning and different assessment instruments, similar constructs appear useful for differentiating healthy from unhealthy families. Some consensus appears to be emerging about what makes for optimal family functioning, despite the diversity of families, and despite the different methods that are currently available for measuring it. Much work needs to be done, particularly with late-life families.