The Lawton IADL Scale rates eight tasks a person needs to live on their own, from using the telephone to handling money. Each scores 0 or 1, for a total from 0, low function, to 8, high function. See how to score it, what each total means, and how it helps in a memory assessment, then record the result with the free template. Get the official form from the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing.
Lawton IADL result template
FreeLAWTON IADL RESULT Date: [Date] Patient: [Name or ID, age] Lives: [Alone, with a partner, with family, or in supported housing] Reason: [Baseline, memory assessment, change reported, before discharge, or follow-up] INFORMANT Answered by: [Patient, informant, or both] Informant: [Name, relationship, and how often they see the patient] Accounts agree: [Yes, or the domains where they differ] Interpreter: [Language, or none] EIGHT DOMAINS Telephone: [0 or 1, and what the person does now] Shopping: [0 or 1, and detail] Food preparation: [0 or 1, and detail] Housekeeping: [0 or 1, and detail] Laundry: [0 or 1, and detail] Transportation: [0 or 1, and how the person gets around] Medications: [0 or 1, and who sets up the doses] Finances: [0 or 1, and who pays the bills and does the banking] Total: [0 to 8] Function level: [Low function, partial dependence, or high function] CHANGE IN FUNCTION Last score: [Date and total, or first score] Domains lost or regained: [Which, and since when] Likely cause: [Cognitive decline, physical limits, sensory loss, low mood, or a new illness] Never done: [Tasks the person has never done, so a 0 is not read as new loss] CARE NEEDS Help now: [Who helps with which task, and how often] Unmet needs and risks: [Missed doses, unpaid bills, scams, unsafe cooking, driving, isolation] PLAN Assessment: [Cognitive testing, medication review, labs, home safety or driving assessment] Services: [Home care, meal delivery, pharmacy blister packs, occupational therapy, social work] Repeat: [Date or interval] Clinician: [Name, credentials]
Use it for
Ask the person, someone who knows their daily life, or both, about each of the eight domains as things are now. It takes 10 to 15 minutes.
Avoid: Asking “Do you manage your money?” and writing yes. Ask who paid the last bill, and how.
Each domain scores 1 or 0 by the person’s highest level of function in it; add the eight for a total from 0 to 8.
Avoid: Trusting a 1 to mean full independence. In some domains a person who now needs help still scores 1, and only the detail shows it.
The total gives a rough level of independence; the change from the person’s own baseline tells you more.
Avoid: Reading a lower score as decline when a family member simply took over a task the person could still do.
Loss of complex daily tasks is often the first change families notice, and it helps tell dementia from mild cognitive impairment.
Avoid: Scoring from the patient’s account alone. People with memory loss often rate their abilities higher than their families do.
Each domain lost points to a kind of help, and the plan belongs in the same note as the score.
Avoid: A total with no plan beside it. The score is there to show what help is needed.
Score once as a baseline, then again yearly, after a hospital stay, or when anyone notices a change.
Each one follows the recording template. Use them to judge how much to write.
Memory clinic, first visit, history from the patient and her daughter
76-year-old woman, widowed, lives alone in an apartment. Answered with her daughter, who visits three times a week. Their accounts differ on medications and cooking: she says she manages both; her daughter describes doubled doses in October and a burnt pan in August. Scored from the daughter’s examples.
Telephone 1: calls family and the clinic from her contacts list. Shopping 0: her daughter now does the weekly shop with her after months of duplicate purchases; she buys bread and milk alone. Food preparation 0: stopped cooking after the burnt pan; heats meals her daughter leaves. Housekeeping 1: dishes and light tidying. Laundry 1: does her own. Transportation 1: takes the bus alone to church and the library; stopped driving at 74 because of her eyesight. Medications 0: took her blood pressure tablet twice on two days in October; her daughter now fills a weekly pill organizer. Finances 1: still pays for small purchases, but her daughter took over the bills and banking in September after two late notices and a $900 gift-card scam call. Total 5, partial dependence.
No earlier Lawton score. By her daughter’s account she managed all eight alone a year ago: about 8 to 5 over 12 months, with shopping, cooking, and medications lost and finances partly lost. Likely cause: cognitive decline; no stroke, fall, new illness, or change in vision or mobility in that time. A Mini-Cog of 2 at her check-up in September led to this referral.
Help now: her daughter on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the shop, the pill organizer, the bills, and meals. Unmet needs: alone four days a week with no one checking doses, and still answers unknown callers.
MoCA today 18 of 30, lowest on recall and executive items. B12, thyroid, calcium, and blood count drawn; brain imaging ordered. The loss of independence in daily tasks, with the testing, points to mild dementia rather than mild cognitive impairment, pending the workup for reversible causes. Pharmacy blister packs with a daily reminder call. A call-blocking phone. Social work referral for home support on the other four days. Daughter to start the power of attorney discussion. Repeat the Lawton IADL at the 6-month review.
Family practice, annual check-up, first baseline score
81-year-old man, widowed 3 years ago, lives alone in a house with stairs. Answered by himself; his son, who lives 20 minutes away, agreed with each answer by phone.
Telephone 1: uses a smartphone for calls and video calls with his grandchildren. Shopping 1: does his own weekly shop. Food preparation 1: cooks most evenings. Housekeeping 1: keeps the house himself, with a cleaner once a month for heavy jobs. Laundry 1: does his own weekly. Transportation 1: drives, but gave up night driving last winter because of glare. Medications 1: fills his own weekly organizer for five medicines; pharmacy refills on time. Finances 1: online banking, and pays his own bills. Total 8, high function.
First score, recorded as his baseline. Never done: before his wife died he had never cooked or done laundry, so he learned both in the past 3 years. The one change he reports is the night driving; the 0 or 1 doesn’t show it, so it’s noted here.
Help now: the monthly cleaner. Risks: lives alone, and slipped on icy front steps last winter without injury. Wears his hearing aids. Mini-Cog 5 at the same visit.
No services needed. Eye exam booked to look for cataracts as the cause of the glare. A grab rail and ice melt for the front steps before winter. Repeat the Lawton IADL at next year’s check-up, or sooner after a hospital stay or any concern from him or his son.
A 1 for finances can mean full control, or someone whose daughter now does the banking. Write what the person does in each domain.
In a memory assessment, people often say they manage tasks their family has quietly taken over. Ask an informant, and ask for examples.
A man whose wife always did the laundry scores 0 there without any decline. Note it as never done, so the next reader doesn’t count it as new.
A woman who stopped shopping after a hip fracture has a mobility problem, not a cognitive one. Ask why each task was lost before reading the total.
The original version left out food preparation, housekeeping, and laundry for men. Current practice scores all eight for everyone, so totals can be compared.
Residents don’t cook, shop, or do laundry because the home does them, so the score says little. A basic self-care measure fits better there.
Vero Scribe records the Lawton IADL result in your template from the visit, with the patient’s consent, or from your dictation: each domain with its detail, the total, the change, and the help that follows. You review and edit every line, then copy it into your record. Vero works in 60+ languages.
Score each of the eight domains 1 or 0, by the person’s highest level of function in it as the official form describes, and add them for a total from 0 to 8. In some domains doing part of the task still scores 1; in others only full independence does. Record a line of detail for each domain as well as the total.
The source describes 0 as low function, dependent, and 8 as high function, independent. A common way to read the total is 0 to 2 low function, 3 to 5 partial dependence, and 6 to 8 high function, but these groups are descriptive, and the scale has no validated cutoff. A drop from the person’s own baseline matters more than the band.
Using the telephone, shopping, food preparation, housekeeping, laundry, transportation, managing medications, and handling finances. The official form from the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing describes the levels in each.
The Katz ADL measures basic self-care: bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, continence, and feeding, scored 0 to 6. The Lawton IADL measures the more complex tasks of living on your own. People usually lose instrumental activities before basic ones, so the Lawton picks up early decline and the Katz shows the need for hands-on care. Many assessments use both.
Trouble with complex tasks, especially medications, finances, the telephone, and getting around, is often an early sign of dementia. In the usual diagnostic criteria, needing help with tasks such as paying bills or managing medicines because of cognitive decline is what separates dementia from mild cognitive impairment. Ask an informant as well as the patient, and check the loss isn’t from a physical problem.
It was at first. The 1969 version scored women on all eight domains and men on five, leaving out food preparation, housekeeping, and laundry, so men scored 0 to 5. Current recommendations score all eight domains for everyone, and note any task a person has never done.
Nurses, physicians, occupational therapists, social workers, and other trained staff give it. It’s an interview with the person, someone who knows their daily life, or both, and it takes 10 to 15 minutes. It works in the community, in clinic, and in hospital, but not for people living in care homes.
The scale is copyrighted by The Gerontological Society of America. The Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing reprints the form with permission in its Try This sheet, which may be copied whole for not-for-profit educational use with the institute credited. Get the official form there. The recording template on this page is free to copy or download.
Patient-reported measures of symptoms and function, scored as T-scores with 50 as the average: short forms, CATs, and the PROMIS-29.
Six basic self-care activities rated independent or dependent, scored 0 to 6, for function and care needs in older adults.
Eleven questions on arm, shoulder, and hand function over the past week, scored 0 to 100: the higher, the more disability.
Twenty everyday activities rated for difficulty: lower limb function scored 0 to 80, higher is better, and 9 points is a real change.
Forty-two questions on one knee over the past week: five subscales, each scored 0 to 100, where 100 means no knee problems.
The three-minute cognitive screen that often comes before a fuller memory assessment.
The yearly visit where a baseline function score fits for older adults.
Notes for older adults: function, cognition, falls, and the family in the room.
Every tool, by area, with what its scores mean.
Vero records scores, findings, and plans in the templates you choose, so you review instead of type.
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