Applied Activities of Daily Living and its Standard Value Determined according to Frenchay Activities Index Scores for Randomly Sampled Middle and Advanced Age People Living at Home

In general, activities in daily life of stroke patients or elderly persons living at home may be divided into basic and applied activities of daily living (ADL). The basic ADL is what is generally called ADL, and is defined as activities that all people perform fundamentally and daily in ordinary life; the applied ADL is similar to what is called “activities parallel to daily living, ” “instrumental ADL, ” or “extended ADL, ” and is defined as more applied and complicated activities in daily life. We propose the Frenchay Activities Index as a good method of measuring the applied ADL, and introduce the standard value of the applied ADL determined according to Frenchay Activities Index scores for randomly sampled persons more than 54 years old living at home in Yahatanishiku, Kitakyushu-city. One thousand persons were selected from the voter list of Yahatanishi-ku, and a questionnaire including individual's profile, Barthel index, and Frenchay Activities index was mailed. Seven hundred and fifty two subjects who agreed to participate in the investigation and who were living at home at the time of the investigation were recruited for analysis. The subjects were 361 men and 391 women, 67.1 years of age; 85 living alone, 521 living with a spouse, 145 living with other family members, and 1 living with a friend. The total score of Barthel index was 98.5. The total scores of Frenchay Activities Index were 22.5±7.1 for men 55-59 years of age, 32.9±8.8 for women; 24.6±8.3 for men 60-69 years of age, 31.5±7.2 for women; 21.±8.6 for men 70-79 years of age, 27.5±8.6 for women; and 20.9±11.5 for men 80-90 years of age, 18.9±10.1 for women. The analysis of General Liner Model revealed that gender, age, and living conditions significantly affected total scores of the Frenchay Activities Index. The result suggested that there was a difference in the applied ADL between men and women, possibly because of the gender-related difference of lifestyle.