An abbreviation for Activities of Daily Living. The performance of the basic
activities of self care; getting in and out of bed, dressing, eating, and getting
around inside, dressing, bathing and using the toilet.

Assessment of ADL include identification of how a patient's symptoms affect
his/her ability to care for self based from the perspective of physical, mental,
or social ability to carry on the normal activities of life. How do the symptoms
affect his/her ability to care for self, to move about, to do what he/she would
do if able?

Relative to the neurologic exam, for example, interpretation of ADL is based
on the impact of neurological disability on such functions as understanding,
communicating, remembering, seeing, speaking, feeling, moving, walking, and
integrated regulatory functions such as elimination. Assessment of ADLs
should be viewed in terms of capacity disabilities rather than dysfunction of
component parts of the body.