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Assisting with Activities of Daily Living

Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) are activities that individuals need to perform in their daily lives for self-care. These include bathing, dressing and feeding. Depending on your loved one’s disability and needs, they may require your guidance or assistance in performing ADLs. Learning proper techniques for assisting your loved one will help you better manage your caregiving duties.

  Key Points

  • ADLs include washing or bathing, dressing, feeding, toileting, transferring and mobility.
  • Difficulties encountered in performing ADLs may be due to physical limitations, cognitive limitations and difficulties with emotional regulation.

Activities of daily living (ADLs) generally include the following1:

  1. Washing or bathing
  2. Dressing
  3. Feeding
  4. Toileting
  5. Transferring: moving from one surface to another, such as from the bed to a chair. It also includes descending to a sitting position, sitting up and shifting to a standing position.
  6. Mobility: move about unaided2.

Your loved one may face difficulties and require assistance to perform ADLs due to their disability which affect areas such as gross and fine motor skills, memory processing, understanding and making sense of information. Difficulties in regulating emotions may also affect their motivation to perform ADLs.

Footnotes:

1Functional Assessment Report for Adult Seniors – AIC

2https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470404/

  Key Points

  • It is essential to equip yourself with the proper techniques to assist your loved one with their ADLs.
  • These skills can be acquired by speaking with professionals, attending relevant trainings and tapping on support groups and online videos.
  • There are also various assistive devices or assistive technology available to help with ADLs.

While therapy may help your loved one to perform ADLs more independently, they may still require your assistance. You can break down each ADL into smaller, more manageable tasks that they can do on their own. For example, your loved one may be able to put their arms through their shirt sleeves themselves but may require your help with buttoning. It is thus important for you to still be equipped with the relevant techniques to assist your loved one and maintain his well-being, but in a less physically demanding manner.

To learn how to assist your loved one with ADLs, you can approach professionals like occupational therapists for guidance and demonstrations to promote independence while ensuring safety. For example, you can learn the specific body postures and sequence of steps that your loved one can adopt when performing a particular ADL. There are also training providers who offer courses on techniques for assisting with ADLs. Some of these providers offer customised home-based ADL training to meet your loved one’s specific needs. You can find out more about the types of trainings available and financial schemes that help defray training costs.

Assistive technology devices can help you assist your loved one with ADLs. For example, using commodes can help in toileting, while hoists and transfer boards can ease the process of transferring.

 Resources


Get your guide to Activities of Daily Living Attend customised disability training Gain basic ADL knowledge and skills 

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