An Activities of Daily Living (ADL) assessment assesses an employee’s ability to perform daily functions in the areas of personal care, home maintenance and recreational and social activities while taking into account their pre-injury status.

An occupational therapist (OT) is tasked with the assessment of the worker's requirements as a result of their work-related injury and in assisting workers to maximise their independence.

What are the Activities of Daily Living?

ADL's are occupation based tasks that people usually need to be able to perform in order to live as independent people.

Benefits of an ADL assessment:

These include, but are not limited to;

• Maximising an individual's ability to be independent
• Reducing the reliance on other costlier home help services.
• Minimising injury/aggravation in the home
• Shortening the period of incapacity

The process is aimed at helping individuals relearn or regain the ability to carry out their ADL tasks. The program is best carried out within the employee home setting but it also important to incorporate the evaluation of an individual’s work environment as part of the process. 

The assessment specialist should provide a report singling out the difficulties with ADL’s from which recommendations can be drawn. This may range from home/workplace modification to the provision of assistive equipment where necessary.

When is an ADL assessment necessary?

There are a number of scenarios that can make an ADL assessment necessary. This include the following;

• When an individual has suffered a significant injury or illness.
• When an individual's independence is compromised
• Medico-legal assessment
• When there is a risk of that an individual's everyday activities may exacerbate their condition
• To plan for an individual's post-operative return to their residential environment

At Recovery Partners, our ADL Assessment program is designed to help reduce the impact of injury or illness to an individual while helping facilitate an early return to independence and pre-injury functions.

Our ADL assessment services are available in multiple locations nationwide.

For more information, you can make enquiries here. Alternatively, our consultants love to have a chat, so go ahead and give us a call on 1300 OHS RTW (647 789).