What Are ADLs and IADLs?

Six little letters decide what care your mother qualifies for — and what her insurance will pay.

ADLs — activities of daily living — are the basics of self-care: bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, continence, and eating. IADLs — instrumental activities of daily living — are the skills of running a life: cooking, cleaning, managing medications, driving, handling money, using the phone. Why does the jargon matter? Because nearly everything in senior care is measured against these two lists. Long-term care insurance typically pays when someone needs help with two or more ADLs. Care assessments, level-of-care decisions, Medicaid eligibility — all built on ADLs and IADLs. And here’s the useful part: IADL struggles almost always appear first. Missed bills. Medication mistakes. An empty refrigerator.

Watch the IADLs. When shopping, cooking, and pills start slipping, that’s your planning window — open before the ADLs follow.

This has been Care Without Crisis Explains, presented by Vanguard Care Solutions.

For more free videos and family resources — or when you’re ready to talk about care at home — visit vanguardcaresolutions.com or call 301-327-1444.