Activities of daily living (ADLs) is a term used in healthcare to refer to daily self-care activities within an individual's place of residence, in outdoor environments, or both. Health professionals routinely refer to the ability or inability to perform ADLs as a measurement of the functional status of a person, particularly in regards to people with disabilities and the elderly.
ADLs are defined as "the things we normally do...such as feeding ourselves, bathing, dressing, grooming, work, homemaking, and leisure." A number of national surveys collect data on the ADL status of the U.S. population. While basic categories of ADLs have been suggested, what specifically constitutes a particular ADL in a particular environment for a particular person may vary.
Read more about Activities Of Daily Living: Basic ADLs, Instrumental ADLs, Evaluation of ADLs
Famous quotes containing the words activities, daily and/or living:
“I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
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—Sarah Bernhardt (1845–1923)