ADL (activities of daily living)
ADL stands for activities of daily living: the basic self-care tasks such as eating, dressing, bathing and using the toilet. ADLs in a record describe how independently a person manages them.
How to read it
StatPearls, the medical reference published on the National Library of Medicine’s Bookshelf, calls ADLs an indicator of a person’s functional status and says the term was coined by Sidney Katz in 1950. Charleston Area Medical Center, California Correctional Health Care Services and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries all list ADL as “activities of daily living”.
Also searched as: adl meaning, adl medical abbreviation, adls.
These pages explain what medical abbreviations and symbols stand for. They are not medical advice and give no doses: a pharmacist or prescriber can explain what any label means for you.
What are the basic ADLs?
StatPearls names six in its summary: eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, managing continence and transferring (moving from one position to another). Its fuller list words them a little differently: ambulating, feeding, dressing, personal hygiene, continence and toileting. The authors say there is some consensus on what ADLs should include but significant variability in how assessment questionnaires ask about them, so the number differs from one checklist to another. The Katz Index of Independence in ADL is the checklist StatPearls names as the most used for basic ADLs.
Instrumental ADLs (IADLs)
Instrumental ADLs are the more complex tasks of living independently. StatPearls lists transportation, managing finances, shopping, meal preparation, housecleaning and home maintenance, managing communication with others, and managing medications. The Lawton Instrumental ADL Scale scores eight: food preparation, housekeeping, telephone use, transportation, medication management, finance management, shopping and laundry.
More medical chart abbreviations
Browse symbols drawn with letters and numbers or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Activities of Daily Living (StatPearls), Edemekong PF, Bomgaars DL, Sukumaran S, Schoo C; last updated 4 May 2025, StatPearls Publishing, via NCBI Bookshelf (U.S. National Library of Medicine), Introduction; Function
- Abbreviations Approved for Medical Records, Charleston Area Medical Center, A
- Approved Abbreviations, Clinical 2022, Health Care Department Operations Manual, California Correctional Health Care Services, A
- NAACCR Recommended Abbreviation Listings, NAACCR UDS/Registry Operations Text Work Group, North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (copy hosted by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services), Abbreviations by term
Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research