PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE-TEST AND ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING SCALES IN THE ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH-STATUS IN ELDERLY PEOPLE

Objective: To compare the ability of Basic Activities of Daily Living (BADL), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), and the Physic al Performance Test (PPT) to detect health status impairments. Patient s: Five hundred forty nine community-dwelling elders (89.8% of the eli gible elderly population) aged 70 and over; mean age [was] 76.8 +/- 6. 1; 179 were males and 370 females. Setting: City of Ospitaletto, Bresc ia, Northern Italy. Measurements: A multidimensional questionnaire ass essing demographic variables, indicators of social activities, psychol ogical function, and somatic health and functional status (BADL and IA DL). Also, the PPT was administered. Results: Cognitive and affective status were independently associated with BADL, IADL function, and age ; number of drugs were also associated with IADL function. Other healt h variables (number of diseases, number of symptoms, and global health score) did not independently contribute to explaining the BADL and IA DL variance. Cognitive status, number of symptoms, number of diseases, number of drugs, and global health were independently associated with PPT. Conclusions: Chronic diseases may affect functional status in a manner that is insensitive to traditional self-report ADL and IADL mea sures. Performance-based measures may capture this impairment before m ore severe functional loss emerges.