Measuring the activities of daily living: comparisons across national surveys
Article Abstract:
Activities of daily living (ADLs) are the basic tasks of everyday life, including eating, washing oneself, dressing, using the bathroom, and moving about. This designation has begun to replace the vaguer notion of the ability to perform a ''major activity.'' Instrumental ADLs, or IADLs, measure more complex work such as maintaining a checkbook or cooking, and tests of cognitive ability measure the competence of those with Alzheimer's and other dementias. Difficulty with one or more ADLs increases with age, although few very old people need help with them. Measurement of ADLs is important because they are strong predictors of nursing home admission, need for paid home care, hospital and physician services, insurance coverage, and death. Questions about ADLs have become as common as those about age, sex and income in research on the elderly. Because not all surveys use the same list of ADLs, and because they phrase the questions differently, there are very large discrepancies among the results. Whether ADLs are measured by level of difficulty, type of assistance, or duration of the problem will affect the results. In addition, the composition of the people surveyed, the data collection methods, and chance all play a role in the results. For insurance companies and government policy, it is important to have accurate numbers in order to predict demand for services of the amount of payout. Policy analysts must remember that measures such as the ADL will never be as accurate as, for example, mortality statistics. When choosing a survey and a set of questions to use, researchers and policy analysts must first ask themselves which questions they are trying to answer. Survey researchers must also avert problems by describing in more detail how ADLs were defined, and which responses they used. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)
Publication Name: Journals of Gerontology
Subject: Seniors
ISSN: 0022-1422
Year: 1990
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Return migration to region of birth among retirement-age persons in the United States
Article Abstract:
Studies show that persons returning to their state of birth after retirement account for a significant proportion of elderly migration, or movement from one part of the country to another. However, it appears that elderly migration does not make up a large proportion of the migration by the population as a whole. Past research indicated that the rate of elderly migration was greater than the migration of the general population, suggesting that elderly persons tend to return home more often than the nonelderly. In contrast, this study showed that the rate of elderly migration was lower than that of the general population, and elderly persons were not more likely to return home than the nonelderly. The study of return migration is difficult, and should be viewed as a dynamic process rather than an evaluation of rates and volumes of migration or movement at a given point in time. In addition, the tendency toward migration depends on age and region. Hence, migration should be assessed over a lifetime as in a life table, or over a specific projection period as in a population projection. The weaknesses of past studies of elderly migration are reviewed, and more accurate approaches for assessing elderly migration are discussed. It is suggested that life expectancies and population projections may more accurately reflect the migration of the elderly population. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)
Publication Name: Journals of Gerontology
Subject: Seniors
ISSN: 0022-1422
Year: 1990
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Measuring the psychological outcomes of falling: a systematic review. Newly reported chronic conditions and onset of functional dependency
- Abstracts: Relationship between age and aspects of depression: Consistency and reliability across two longitudinal studies
- Abstracts: Making the most out of a $30,000 nest egg. Long-term investing: gaining profits and pleasure. Investments that will help you beat inflation
- Abstracts: Treatment of pain in cognitively impaired compared with cognitively intact older patients with hip-fracture. Mitral balloon valvotomy for the treatment of mitral stenosis in octogenarians
- Abstracts: The role of muscle loss in the age-related decline of grip strength: cross-sectional and longtitudinal perspectives