Assessing IADL’s- Telephone Use

Several core functional activities form the bases of IADL assessments. How an older person performs on these activities gives important information about that person’s ability to live independently with safety and quality of life.

Telephone Use

Determining a person’s ability to make and receive phone calls can help identify home safety issues. From higher-level activities, such as locating or remembering a phone number or looking up a number, to following through to place a call and completing a call all give clues to a person’s ability to manage independently and safely at home. If there was a fire, could or would the person be able to call for help? Can the person call the doctor’s office and make an appointment? If there was a water leak, could the older person locate and call a plumber, or would the person need to call a family member or friend to get that person to locate help?

Determining capacity in this regard can be tricky. First, determine whether the person has the physical capacity to use the phone: can the person reach the phone, hold it, and hear well enough to use it? Asking the person to place a call to the doctor to reconfirm an appointment is one method of evaluating behavior. Another is to ask what the person would do in an emergency. Then ask the person to give the numbers of the persons he or she would need to call. Document the person’s responses. When conducting assessments for IADLs, there is the risk that people will give false-positive responses—stating they can perform a function when in fact they may have difficulty performing it. Observation and gathering information from several sources help the care manager pinpoint areas of strength and limitations.

Hearing loss is are large problem in the elderly.  1/3 of older people over 65 year old 2/3 over 70 have a hearing loss

Three quarters over 80 have a hearing loss. This leads to isolation

It impairs use of telephone, safety (hearing a fire alarm) and driving. One test a health care professional or geriatric care manager can do is to whisper to client or ask if can hear your ticking watch. The solutions a GCM or health care professional can use is to send the client to primary physician as it may be wax in the ear.

The primary physician should refer to audiologist, if there is a problem in hearing.

Solutions for GCM or a health care professional can offer are the installation of

Loud doorbells and using hearing adaptive devices for telephones,TV’s and theater. It may be suggesting to family and friends that they take them to restaurants on off hours.

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