What Are Activities of Daily Living?

As your elderly family member ages, some activities of daily living can become much more difficult for her to handle on her own. These activities, sometimes abbreviated as ADLs, are activities you might not think too much about until they start to become difficult.

ADLs Defined

Activities of daily living are those activities that people engage in every single day in order to maintain themselves and their lives. The basic activities of daily living are:

• Eating
• Bathing
• Getting dressed
• Using the toilet
• Walking

Your elderly family member’s doctor may want to evaluate her skills with activities of daily living as a part of the evaluation process he might make for a variety of different situations. If your senior is having difficulty in any of these areas of life, then you may need to intervene on her behalf.

Why They’re Important

These activities are so important because they are the building blocks for everything else in your senior’s life. If she cannot manage these activities on her own, then she is likely having significant trouble overall. Keep in mind that your elderly family member can have varying degrees of difficulty and only with specific activities.

What You Can Do

Talk with your senior about where she’s having difficulty. From there you can start to determine what might help her the most. You may also want to talk with her doctor so that you can iron out a solid plan for how you can help your senior best now and in the future. Her doctor may be able to recommend a specific course of action that can help.

Lining up Help

Something else to consider is that you may want to enlist the assistance of senior care providers. They are extremely familiar with activities of daily living and their importance in your senior’s life. They’re equipped to help with all of these different activities themselves and they can show you how to make these types of tasks easier for both you and your elderly family member.

Managing activities of daily living for your aging family member can help her to maintain her independence for as long as possible.

If you or an aging loved one are considering caregivers in Plainsboro, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Care Street Home Care of New Brunswick today. Call (732) 607-8870.