ADL / IADL Checklist: Functional Independence

What it measures

This checklist documents a patient's current functional status across basic activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). Its purpose is to describe functional independence and care needs so the results can inform care planning and resource allocation. The report cites Katz and colleagues (1963) for ADL and Lawton and Brody (1969) for IADL. It is a documentation aid for screening, not a substitute for a full functional assessment.

Items and ratings

There are 17 items in two groups, and each is rated on the same four levels: Independent, Needs Help, Dependent, or Cannot Do.

Group	Items
ADL (9)	Bathing, dressing, grooming, mouth care, toileting, transferring (bed/chair), walking, climbing stairs, eating
IADL (8)	Shopping, cooking, managing medications, using the phone or looking up numbers, housework, laundry, driving or using public transportation, managing finances

The tool carries a reminder that financial management should never be done by the same person who is providing care.

Interpreting the result

The tool does not produce a single total score or a cut-off. Instead it keeps a running count for each group of how many activities fall into each of the four levels, so you can see at a glance, for example, that a patient is independent in all basic ADLs but needs help with medications and finances. Rate each item on current function rather than past ability, and interpret the pattern together with history, collateral information and the clinical context.

What the report includes

Generate Report copies a plain-text summary to the clipboard for the EMR. It lists the date, each rated ADL and IADL item with its level, a count summary for each group, an overall line showing how many of the 17 items were rated and the totals at each level, a note on how the counts should be used, and the two source citations. Unrated items are left out of the item list. A reset button clears all ratings after confirmation.