Procedures This RCT compared the RSV-delivered intervention to a supportive telephone contact control delivered by research staff. Prior experience in dealing with terminal illness was not an eligibility criterion for RSVs or for research staff. However, RSVs indicated if there were any type of advanced chronic illness they would prefer to avoid when being assigned a patient-caregiver dyad. Whereas RSVs were over age 55 and had at least a high school education, all research staff members were under 40 and had completed at least a bachelor's degree in social/behavioral science or nursing. Our objective in this RCT was to determine whether RSVs could be trained to effectively deliver the reminiscence and creative activity intervention. Thus, the RSVs and research staff did not need to be similar. In translation to the community, there will only be dyads receiving the intervention from RSVs.