Glossary
Activities of daily living
The everyday self-care and household tasks a person needs to manage, such as dressing, cooking and getting around.
Also called: ADLs
Definition
Activities of daily living (ADLs) are the routine tasks a person carries out to look after themselves and run a household, such as personal care, dressing, preparing meals, moving around and getting to places. Across the NSW workers compensation, CTP and icare schemes, a person's ability to manage ADLs is used as a practical measure of how an injury affects everyday function and independence. It can inform decisions about domestic assistance or attendant care support. ADLs describe function rather than diagnosis, and give useful context for the level of activity a person may tolerate.
In practice
How a worker manages activities of daily living is often noted in assessments and gives a real-world picture of function beyond the workplace. Nexus draws on that functional context, alongside the capacity the treating doctor certifies, when coordinating suitable duties and return-to-work planning, so proposed tasks are realistic. Nexus observes and coordinates around function; it does not assess, treat or make clinical judgements about a person's condition.