INDEX BARTHEL

Nursing professionals carry out important work evaluating the needs of patients and care-givers. They also provide the required care, as well as transmit the knowledge and skills of self-care. In the planning of care it is necessary to evaluate the Basic Activities of Daily Living (BADL), essential for self-care, such as cleaning and dressing oneself, using the bathroom among others.

Order to collect information about the ability of the elderly to perform normal activity, and maintain independence there are various scales to assess the activities of daily living. Among these is the index of Katz, Plutchik scale, index of Lawton and Brody or index of Barthel, which I will highlight in this publication.

The Barthel Index is a measure of the level of independence in life activities daily (ADLs). Measurement scale is the best known ADL, studied and disseminated at International. It was described by Mahoney FI and Barthel DW in 1965, designed to measure rehabilitative treatment outcomes in patients incapacitated by processes neuromuscular and skeletal muscle. Assesses 10 areas of ADL (eating, transferring between the chair and the bed, grooming, toileting, bathing, moving around, up and down stairs, dressing and undressing, bowel control and control of urine).

There have been studies of validity and reliability of the Barthel index at various places and with various pathologies. Regarding the validity of the fact that over 30 years Barthel index is used to measure the specific objective of independence in ADL makes it the gold standard for measuring ADL, on the other hand has conceptual validity allowed studies that demonstrated the predictive ability of this index.

The Barthel index provides information both from the overall score and each one of the partial scores for each activity. This helps us understand what are specific deficiencies of the person and facilitates the valuation of its evolution temporary.

Bibliography.

• Buzzini M, Secundini R, Gazzotti A, Lia Giradles R, Arbildo Castro RA, Druetta S,

         Sequeiros S, Rodríguez Vélez A, Li Mau L. “Valoración del Indice de Barthel”. Boletín

        

         del Departamento de Docencia e Investigación IREP. Vol 6, nº 1. 2002.

• Trigas Ferrin, M. Escalas de valoración funcional en el anciano, 2011

          Disponible en: http://www.galiciaclinica.info/PDF/11/225.pdf