Blog: November 2025

Activities of Daily Living and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living – What are they and why do they matter?

Greetings!! I hope this blog post finds you well as we get deeper into the fall months! I want to get into something that we as humans do every single day, in some way, which is activities of daily living, or ADLs. To further complicate things in the rehabilitation world, there is something called instrumental activities of daily living, or IADLs that we also do. Let me explain! 

ADLs, simply put, are everything that we do to care for ourselves in a 24-hour period. IADLs can be more tricky to define, and include higher level tasks such as cooking, cleaning, driving, medication management, finance management, shopping, laundry, community related tasks such as volunteering or going to the doctors office. Work, for those that engage in it, is also an IADL. IADLs also include leisure activities! This varies depending on your age and stage of life so let me simplify it here! The degree to which any person engages in ADLs or IADLs is dependent on a variety of factors including age, cognitive abilities and physical abilities so I will try and simplify it below!

Infants – toddler years: sleeping including nighttime routines, eating and self feeding and all forms of movement and play

Childhood – adolescent years: sleeping including nighttime routines, health management (especially as puberty presents itself), self-feeding, grooming (oral hygiene, facewashing, hair management, makeup, nails, lotions and potions, and shaving), toileting (hygiene and clothing management), dressing, bathing/showering, all school-related activities and all play-related activities including related mobility. As a child advances into adolescence, obtaining a part time job, or opening a bank account – those would be considered IADLs!

Early adulthood – older adulthood years: for this age group –  think about everything that you do in a 24 hour period – it’s either an ADL or IADL. That includes things like sex, resting, working out, or engaging in a hobby. 

So you may be thinking – ok why does any of this matter?

As we advance through the different stages of life, the things that we inherently do as humans change. The way we do the things we need to do or want to do looks different when we are 15 compared to when we are 55. The differences come from a variety of factors including but not limited to physical changes in our body structures and functions, we can gain or lose strength, flexibility, mobility, memory, tastes and preferences among other things which impact how we do our everyday activities such as showering, playing that pickup game of basketball, or how we fall and stay asleep. 

In particular, this starts to matter more and more as we age. Inherently humans complete tasks in a certain way and apply limited thought to the “how” of the task completion until our body, in some way forces us to think “ok, how am I going to do this now?”. Conversely – changes can happen in infancy or childhood that impact how one engages in and with their environment including the people within it!

For some, these changes are small, and creep up slowly such as the progression of shoulder pain from being an athlete and developing arthritis. For others, these changes literally hit like a bullet train from left field such as the onset of a neurodegenerative disease such as multiple sclerosis or ALS, or the onset of an illness like COVID-19 or being injured in an accident. Luckily, the world has the profession of occupational therapy to bridge the gap between what we need to be able to do and want to do AND finding ways to complete the same tasks, albeit in a different way, considering the current physical, cognitive and emotional state of that person including all of the layers of their life such as family supports, social determinants of health, socioeconomic status…truly there is a lot of consider!

Hemlock Health and Wellness focuses on ensuring that clients can do what they want to do or need to do in a way that is safe, while promoting independence  with consideration of who they are as a person and what their day to day life actually looks like. If you feel like things are changing, or need to change, schedule a virtual screen to see if we can help you be your best self! As Thanksgiving approaches and you start to engage in all of the holiday-related things…extend some gratitude towards yourself and your body for allowing you to do the things you want to do! 

As always, thank you for reading!

Until next time,

Beth