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DEFINITIONS

By Staff Reporters

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Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)

According to Leslie Kernisan MD MPH, these are the basic self-care tasks that we initially learn as very young children. They are sometimes referred to as “Basic Activities of Daily Living” (BADLs). They include:

• Walking, or otherwise getting around the home or outside. The technical term for this is “ambulating.”
• Feeding, as in being able to get food from a plate into one’s mouth.
• Dressing and grooming, as in selecting clothes, putting them on, and adequately managing one’s personal appearance.
• Toileting, which means getting to and from the toilet, using it appropriately, and cleaning oneself.
• Bathing, which means washing one’s face and body in the bath or shower.
• Transferring, which means being able to move from one body position to another. This includes being able to move from a bed to a chair, or into a wheelchair. This can also include the ability to stand up from a bed or chair in order to grasp a walker or other assistive device.

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If a person is not fully independent with ADLs, then we usually include some information about the amount of assistance they require. ADLs were originally defined in the 1950s by a geriatrician named Sidney Katz, who was trying to define what it might look like for a person to recover to independence after a disabling event such as a stroke or hip fracture. So these measures are sometimes called the “Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living.”

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Filed under: Ask a Doctor, Ethics, Experts Invited, Glossary Terms, LifeStyle, mental health | Tagged: activities daily living, ADL, dementia, health, healthcare, IADLs, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, Leslie Kernisan MD, mental health, MP Lawton, self-improvement, Sidney Katz, writing |