Activities of Daily Living

ADL

clinical

Updated 5/16/2026

Definition

A measure of a patient ability to perform fundamental daily self-care tasks including bathing, dressing, eating, and mobility. ADL assessments are documented in EHR functional status records and used in long-term care eligibility determinations, skilled nursing facility claims, and Medicare Advantage risk adjustment.

Standard Abbreviation

ADL

Database Usage

-- Example column naming
CREATE TABLE claims (
  clm_id VARCHAR(50),
  adl VARCHAR(100),  -- Activities of Daily Living (max 100 chars)
  ...
);

-- Example in SELECT
SELECT
  clm_id,
  adl as activities_of_daily_living
FROM claims;

Common uses in healthcare data

Risk stratification and population health analytics
CMS-HCC risk adjustment and RAF score calculation
Quality measure attribution and HEDIS reporting
Clinical data warehouse schema design
Value-based care contract performance tracking

Example database column name

ISO-11179 snake_case standard

-- Recommended column name
adl

-- Example DDL
CREATE TABLE healthcare_data (
  record_id   VARCHAR(50)   NOT NULL,
  adl          VARCHAR(100),  -- Activities of Daily Living (max 100 chars)
  created_dt  TIMESTAMP     NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
);

Column names follow the ISO-11179 naming convention: lowercase, underscore-separated, using the standard abbreviation as a prefix where applicable.

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