The Geriatrician - Assistive Technology Assessment - page 285

TABLe 13.1 (COnTInUeD)
Geriatric Assessment and ICF codes

Examples of tests and assessment
techniques GA Components ICF codes

Functional Activity Daily Living (ADL)

(Katz et al . 1963)

BF:b176, b525, b620
AP:d410, d440, d450, d460,
d465, d510, d520, d530, d540,
d550, d560

Instrumental Activity Daily Living
(IADL) (Lawton and Brody, 1969)

BF:b176
AP:d177, d230, d360, d440,
d450, d460, d470, d475, d620,
d630, d640
EF:e110, e165

Environmental Interview about safety of the home

environment•
Interview about access to personal
andmedicalservices•
Interview about driving function
Checklist for patients and their
families•.

AP: d475
EF: e115 - e125, e240,
e310 - e340, e355, e360,
e398, e465

Social Support Interview about social history and

qualityofrelationship•
Interview about availability of
assistance•
Caregiver Burden Inventory (Novak
and Guest 1989)
Brief Symptom Inventory *

EF: e310, e320, e340, e355,
e360, e410, e440

Economic Interview about economic status and

insurance•

AP: d870
EF: e165

Spirituality Interview about religion or

spirituality•

AP: d930
EF: e465

Advance
Directives

Discussion about patients' goals and
preferences •

All codes depending on the
goals

The Geriatric assessment procedure is a multidimensional assessment that explores nine domains: medical, cog-
nitive, affective, functional, environmental, social support, economic, spirituality and advance directives (first
column). The domains comprehend several components reported in the second column. In the third column, an
example of geriatric assessment techniques and test are presented. For a specific description of the assessment
techniques and tests referring to the references if given, to Strauss and Tinetti (2009) for items with “+ ” , to Reuben
andRosen(2009)foritemswith“•”andtoLezak,Howieson,andLoring(2004)foritemswith * .
The last column lists the ICF codes belonging to Body Structures (BS), Body Functions (BF), Activities and
Participation (AP), Environmental Factors (EF) related to geriatric assessment.

Considering the state of the art, it seems important to reflect on two problems: on the
one hand the scarce implementation of the ICF in geriatric medicine, and on the other the
importance of training in assistive solutions by geriatricians. With respect to the first prob-
lem, it should be noted that the ICF offers a unique opportunity to describe and classify
functioning, disability, and health in a common framework and in a common language,
which would be very useful in a multidisciplinary team assessment. Moreover, although
all member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) were invited to implement
the ICF in the health sector (Stucki et al. 2005), different conceptualizations of disability
coexist and several studies consider the transition from health to disability from the “the
Disablement Process” perspective, proposed by Verbrugge and Jette (1994) and based on