Assessment of activities of daily living in dementia: development of the Bristol Activities of Daily Living Scale

Age Ageing. 1996 Mar;25(2):113-20. doi: 10.1093/ageing/25.2.113.

Abstract

A new assessment of Activities of Daily Living has been developed specifically for use with people with dementia. The assessment is a carer rated instrument consisting of 20 daily-living abilities. The scale has 'face validity', assessing items rated as important by and using levels of ability generated by carers. It has 'construct' validity as demonstrated by principal components analysis. It has 'concurrent' validity in that it correlates well with observed task performance. It has good 'test-retest' reliability as measured by Cohen's Kappa and it correlates well with the Mini-Mental State Examination. Carers report that it is easy to use and it is relatively short. The authors believe the scale will be useful when assessing demented patients in the community or as part of clinical research trials.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Activities of Daily Living / classification*
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Caregivers
  • Dementia / classification
  • Dementia / diagnosis*
  • Dementia / psychology
  • Female
  • Geriatric Assessment*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mental Status Schedule / statistics & numerical data
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuropsychological Tests / statistics & numerical data*
  • Psychometrics
  • Reproducibility of Results