Structured assessment of independent living skills: preliminary report of a performance measure of functional abilities in dementia.

Assessment of functional abilities is integral to the diagnosis and management of elderly patients with dementia. We present a measure of activities of daily living, the Structured Assessment of Independent Living Skills (SAILS), and report preliminary reliability and validity data for 18 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 18 age- and education-equivalent controls. The SAILS utilizes behaviorally anchored rating scales to directly assess 10 areas of everyday functioning: Fine Motor Skills, Gross Motor Skills, Dressing, Eating, Expressive Language, Receptive Language, Time and Orientation, Money-Related Skills, Instrumental Activities, and Social Interaction. AD patients scored significantly worse than controls in all 10 areas. High correlations were obtained between the SAILS, visuospatial abilities, attention, and visual memory. In contrast, verbal memory, degree of depression, and praxis were not significantly correlated with the SAILS. The SAILS offers a criterion-based means of quantifying patient functional status for both clinical and research applications.