Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) associated with limitations in activities of daily living (ADL) in a large longitudinal sample of the U.S. community-dwelling older population

BackgroundThe staging method for activities of daily living (ADLs) limitations developed by Stineman and colleagues that classifies people into five stages can reflect severity of activity limitations.ObjectiveTo assess the impact of stages of limitations in ADLs on quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and the relative severity of each ADL limitation for a large, nationally-representative sample of the U.S. community-dwelling older population.MethodsData were obtained from the Limited Dataset of the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey Cohort 15 (2012 baseline survey, 2014 follow-up survey). We included respondents aged ≥65 years (n = 105,473). We estimated expected QALYs throughout the remaining lifetime of participants stratified by the ADL limitation status and stages of ADL limitations.ResultsOverall, the expected QALYs was 5.6 years. QALYs decreased with increasing stages of ADL limitations. The adjusted QALYs for Stage 0 (no limitation) participants were 6.8; for Stage I (mild) participants, 3.9; for Stage II (moderate) participants, 2.2; for Stage III (severe) participants, 1.8; and for Stage IV (complete limitations) participants, 1.5. Differences in QALYs occurred between individual ADL items within an ADL stage. In Stage I, for example, participants who reported only problems with getting in or out of chairs had 6.7 QALYs which was markedly higher than participants who reported only problems with walking (3.8 QALYs).ConclusionsOur findings provide additional evidence that Stineman's ADL stages serve as valid estimates of the overall health of elderly Americans. Self-reported ADL status should be routinely collected as a patient-reported outcome in the elderly population.