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Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) Questionnaire

Assess a patient’s independent living skills and measure improvements or declines in daily function over time with this Creyos Health questionnaire

 

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Benefits for Healthcare Providers

Measuring instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) in Creyos Health helps providers understand a patient’s ability to perform activities that are essential for independent living.


Accessible

Reduce Testing Barriers

Overcome technology hesitancy or mobility, vision, or hearing limitations for older patients by offering the IADL questionnaire in clinic or at home.

Access to Care

Provide Ongoing Care

Offer as part of annual wellness visits and routine testing for older adults to measure independent living regularly and ensure patient safety and wellbeing.

Track Over Time

Track Patient Health 

Detect meaningful changes and declines in cognitive health with a centralized patient health record that includes longitudinal data.


IADLs are a Strong Predictor of Future Cognitive Decline

Administer the IADL questionnaire as part of Creyos’ complete dementia protocol to quantify patient independence and guide decisions about treatment, living arrangements, or other next steps.

Review our guide below for a complete look at the Creyos Dementia Assessment protocol.

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Difficulties with IADLs

The Connection Between IADLs and Cognition

Deficits revealed by the questionnaire are associated with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and that patients with MCI who exhibit IADL deficits are at a higher risk of converting to dementia. However, assessing IADLs is not without limitations—whether due to biases from self-report or via a caregiver.

Therefore, objective, performance-based measures of cognition are also needed to complement the IADL, identify specific strengths and weaknesses in various domains of cognitive function, and possibly spot cognitive deficits that have not yet translated into an inability to complete complex activities independently.

Source: Jekel et al., 2025

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Preview the Creyos IADL Sample Report

The Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire offered through Creyos is designed to assess independent living skills.

When administered alongside measures of cognitive performance, it allows clinicians to:

  • Efficiently measure and track independent living skills over time
  • Deliver user-friendly assessments to reduce accessibility barriers for older adults
  • Reduce administrative burden with automated scoring
  • Easily complete cognitive care planning within the platform if needed

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IADL Report

How to Use the IADL Questionnaire

Step 1: Explain the Questionnaire

Creyos is committed to improving accessibility for patients with diverse needs. Our platform offers approachable patient onboarding, simplified instructions, multilingual capabilities, inclusive interfaces, and streamlined workflows.

Step 2: Administer Questionnaire

The IADL questionnaire contains a series of questions that rate a patient’s ability to perform various independent living skills. The Creyos Health platform automatically compares caregiver responses side by side with the patient’s.

Step 3: Review Results

Creyos Health automatically scores IADL questionnaire results and provides reports. Lower scores indicate a greater degree of dependence on others to carry out daily living tasks.

Step 4: Compare With Cognitive Results

If the patient requires further cognitive testing or is diagnosed with dementia, providers can offer follow-up assessments or complete cognitive care planning directly in the Creyos Health platform.

How to use IADL

An All-in-One Solution for Assessing Markers of Dementia

Nearly 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and that number is expected to grow to 13 million by 2050. However, up to 96% of providers are unaware of the best cognitive assessment tools to use in their practice.

The Creyos Health dementia protocol aims to close the gap in cognitive care by giving healthcare providers an end-to-end solution to effectively detect, test, manage, and track cognitive function. Backed by 30 years of rigorous scientific research and aligned to Alzheimer’s Association standards, the toolkit supports more specific diagnosis, sensitive detection, clearly defined comorbid conditions, automated reporting, and better patient outcomes.

Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2024; Alzheimer’s Association, 2019

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Simplify Patient Dementia Assessments with Creyos

Administer the IADL, digitized behavioral health questionnaires, and online cognitive tasks—all in one place.

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Frequently asked questions

What are instrumental activities of daily living?

Instrumental activities of daily living (or IADLs) are complex tasks that require a combination of physical, cognitive, and social skills. This includes using the telephone, shopping, preparing meals, housekeeping, laundry, transportation, and taking medications.

IADLs are often used as a measure of functional independence, especially among older adults, and difficulty with IADLs can indicate a decline in functional independence and may be a sign of underlying health conditions, such as dementia or stroke.

Where did the IADL questionnaire come from?

The Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire was created by M. P. Lawton and E. M. Brody in 1969 as a way to measure independence in daily living.

Who uses the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire?

The IADL questionnaire is commonly used by primary care providers, occupational therapists, neurologists, elder care specialists, and researchers working with elderly patients to help determine the need for assistance. It can also be used in any group where impairment may be standing in the way of everyday activities, such as rehabilitation after an injury or stroke. The IADL questionnaire is not recommended for individuals who are already living in assisted living institutions.


How is the IADL questionnaire scored?

Usually administered by a healthcare professional or caregiver, the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire consists of a series of questions that ask whether a patient can perform each IADL activity independently or whether they need assistance. Both the patient and caregiver complete a version of the IADL, and the results are compared side by side.

The total score for the IADL questionnaire is calculated by summing the scores for each individual item. A higher score indicates greater independence, while a lower score suggests more significant dependence on others for daily living activities. The IADL can be paired with additional questionnaires and cognitive tasks for a more objective and comprehensive picture of brain health.

How reliable is the IADL?

Studies have generally found that this version of the IADL is reliable over time and across raters (e.g., Edwards, 1990), and is valid for discriminating between people with and without dementia when using a cutoff score of one or more deficits to indicate possible dementia (e.g., Mao et al., 2018).

How does administration and scoring of the IADL questionnaire work in Creyos?

Administration is flexible and efficient; questionnaires can be administered by a health provider or technician, either in-clinic or emailed to the patient to be completed remotely. This flexibility allows providers to maximize their appointment time with patients, and reduce time spent on scoring or recording session notes.

When a patient completes the IADL questionnaire, providers get immediate insights through easy-to-read reports that combine questionnaire data with cognitive test results for a full picture of patient brain health.

Creyos can also use APIs to integrate with a variety of electronic health systems (EHR) and has a built-in integration with athenahealth. Our platform automatically collects, scores, and organizes results from each questionnaire and adds them to the patient’s EHR.


What behaviors does the IADL questionnaire evaluate?

The Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire evaluates a patient’s ability to perform activities considered essential to daily life, including using the telephone, shopping, preparing meals, housekeeping, laundry, transportation, and taking medications.


How can the IADL questionnaire support patients?

The IADL questionnaire should be used as a screening tool to assist primary care providers or health professionals in understanding patients’ independent living skills and measuring improvements or declines in function over time. 

Any conclusions drawn from the IADL should be paired with further assessment, such as clinical interviews and observations, additional mental health examinations or assessments, and evaluations of the patient’s level of distress, functional impairment, and/or family history.


What can the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire not do?

The IADL questionnaire can serve as a starting point for conversations between patients and healthcare providers about independence and symptoms related to cognitive decline, but it does not suggest a particular diagnosis or course of treatment on its own. IADL scores are meant as an aid to quantify and measure the presence and severity of symptoms and behaviors over time.

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