Thursday, July 24, 2014

Insights into Measuring Activities of Daily Living

In his article, "Life and Death After Hip Fractures in Older Nursing Home Residents," Eric Widera describes how Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), which include eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, and mobility, are measured in a typical nursing home setting:

" . . . but when is someone independent or dependent in ADLs? In nursing homes, . . . locomotion on the nursing home unit, is described . . . as: “how the resident moves from place to place in the room or hall using whatever device is appropriate or needed.” The device can be a thing like a wheelchair, walker, cane, feet, prothesis, or scooter. So if the nursing home resident did the activity completely on their own without cueing or supervision, then they are described as “independent”. If they need just some oversight or cueing then they are described as needing “supervision”. More help than that is “limited assistance” where the staff do some of the activity, and more help than that is “extensive assistance” where the staff do most of the activity. Lastly, complete dependence is where staff do all of the activity for the nursing home resident.

The other important thing to know is that functional status in this study is based on self-performance as observed across all nursing shifts over a 7-day period. So a resident is independent in an ADL if the resident is able to perform that activity “without help or oversight or requiring help or oversight only 1 or 2 times over 7 days”. The same thing goes with total dependence, the resident needs to require staff to do all of the ADL for all 7 days to be described as dependent.

Why is all of this important? Although these definitions are standardized, a nursing home resident’s self-performance can change shift-to-shift, day-to-day, and week-to-week based on things like their mood, an acute illness, or even just their relationship to their nurse. So one week you may be “dependent” and another week you may be “limited assistance.”

http://www.geripal.org/2014/07/Outcomes-of-Hip-Fracture-in-nursing-homes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Geripal+%28GeriPal%29

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