A grid for a precise analysis of daily activities

Abstract

Assessment of daily living activities is essential in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Most current tools quantitatively assess overall ability but provide little qualitative information on individual difficulties. Only a few tools allow therapists to evaluate stereotyped activities and record different types of errors. We capitalised on the Kitchen Activity Assessment to design a widely applicable analysis grid that provides both qualitative and quantitative data on activity performance. A cooking activity was videotaped in 15 patients with dementia and assessed according to the different steps in the execution of the task. The evaluations obtained with our grid showed good correlations between raters, between versions of the grid and between sessions. Moreover, the degree of independence obtained with our analysis of the task correlated with the Kitchen Activity Assessment score and with a global score of cognitive functioning. We conclude that assessment of a daily living activity with this analysis grid is reproducible and relatively independent of the therapist, and thus provides quantitative and qualitative information useful for both evaluating and caring for demented patients.

Keywords:

• Dementia
• Daily activities
• Functioning
• Grid
• Rehabilitation

Acknowledgments

This study was made possible by a grant given to Vinciane Wojtasik and Eric Salmon by the Mederic Alzheimer Foundation. The Memory Centre was also supported by the CHU de Liège and by an Euregio, Interreg project (Profinteg). We sincerely thank Mrs. Lerochais of Perpignan and her staff for contributing to the design of the analysis grid by assessing its practical use in demented patients.