Table: Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale-MSD Manual Professional Edition

Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale

Activity	Description	Score*
Using the telephone	Uses a telephone, including looking up and dialing numbers	1
Dials a few familiar numbers	1
Answers the telephone but does not dial	1
Does not use the telephone	0
Shopping	Does all the shopping without help	1
Shops for small items without help	0
Needs to be accompanied whenever shopping	0
Cannot do any shopping	0
Preparing food	Plans, prepares, and serves adequate meals without help	1
If given the ingredients, prepares adequate meals	0
Heat and serves prepared meals or prepares meals but ones that are nutritionally inadequate	0
Needs someone to prepare and serve meals	0
Doing household tasks	Does household tasks without help or occasionally with help for physically demanding tasks (eg, washing windows)	1
Does light housework (eg, dish washing, dusting)	1
Does light housework but does not keep the house adequately clean	1
Needs help with all household tasks	1
Does not do any household tasks	0
Doing laundry	Does laundry without help	1
Washes small items (eg, stockings)	1
Needs someone to do all laundry	0
Traveling other than by walking	Uses public transportation without help or drives a car	1
Calls for taxis but does not use other public transportation	1
Uses public transportation if accompanied by someone to help	1
Travels only by taxi or car and only if helped by someone	0
Does not travel	0
Taking prescription medications as directed	Takes the correct doses of prescribed medications at the correct time without help	1
Takes prescribed medications if they are prepared in advance in separate dosage	0
Cannot dispense the prescribed medications	0
Managing money	Manages finances (eg, making a budget, writing checks, paying rent, keeping track of income) without help	1
Buys small items needed on a daily basis but requires help with banking and major purchases	1
Cannot manage money	0
* People are asked to choose the description that most closely matches their highest functional level. Tasks are scored as either 1 (if they can do a task) or 0 (if they cannot).
A summary score ranges from 0 (low function, dependent) to 8 (high function, independent) for women and 0 to 5 for men. The score identifies areas of need in regard to care and support.
Adapted from Lawton MP, Brody EM: Assessment of older people: Self-maintaining and instrumental activities of daily living. Gerontologist 9 (3):179–186, 1969.

Activity

Description

Score*

Using the telephone

Uses a telephone, including looking up and dialing numbers

Dials a few familiar numbers

Answers the telephone but does not dial

Does not use the telephone

Shopping

Does all the shopping without help

Shops for small items without help

Needs to be accompanied whenever shopping

Cannot do any shopping

Preparing food

Plans, prepares, and serves adequate meals without help

If given the ingredients, prepares adequate meals

Heat and serves prepared meals or prepares meals but ones that are nutritionally inadequate

Needs someone to prepare and serve meals

Doing household tasks

Does household tasks without help or occasionally with help for physically demanding tasks (eg, washing windows)

Does light housework (eg, dish washing, dusting)

Does light housework but does not keep the house adequately clean

Needs help with all household tasks

Does not do any household tasks

Doing laundry

Does laundry without help

Washes small items (eg, stockings)

Needs someone to do all laundry

Traveling other than by walking

Uses public transportation without help or drives a car

Calls for taxis but does not use other public transportation

Uses public transportation if accompanied by someone to help

Travels only by taxi or car and only if helped by someone

Does not travel

Taking prescription medications as directed

Takes the correct doses of prescribed medications at the correct time without help

Takes prescribed medications if they are prepared in advance in separate dosage

Cannot dispense the prescribed medications

Managing money

Manages finances (eg, making a budget, writing checks, paying rent, keeping track of income) without help

Buys small items needed on a daily basis but requires help with banking and major purchases

Cannot manage money

* People are asked to choose the description that most closely matches their highest functional level. Tasks are scored as either 1 (if they can do a task) or 0 (if they cannot).

A summary score ranges from 0 (low function, dependent) to 8 (high function, independent) for women and 0 to 5 for men. The score identifies areas of need in regard to care and support.

Adapted from Lawton MP, Brody EM: Assessment of older people: Self-maintaining and instrumental activities of daily living. Gerontologist 9 (3):179–186, 1969.