Background: Engagement in pleasant activities for elders with cognitive impairment may improve mood and reduce behavior problems. The Pleasant Events Schedule-Alzheimer’s Disease (PES-AD) has been described as a useful tool for this purpose, and its transcultural adaptation allows professionals to aid caretakers and elders in identifying pleasurable activities. Objective: Submit the PES-AD to process of cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese. Methods: The PES-AD was submitted to a five-stage process of cross-cultural adaptation as follows: 1) translation; 2) summary of translation; 3) back-translation; 4) evaluation of equivalences: semantic, idiomatic, cultural, conceptual; and 5) pre-testing. Results: The five-stage process was conducted on 36 items and three were adjusted. In the evaluation of equivalencies, four items had a level of agreement less than 0.8 and so were modified according to judges’ suggestions. Discussion: Submitting the PES-AD to a five-stage, cross-cultural adaptation maintained the original instrument’s content validity.