LAUSR

BACKGROUND Although there is a myriad of unilateral assessments for stroke survivors, few address bilateral function, which is critical for many daily living tasks. OBJECTIVE To develop an activities of daily living list of tasks requiring bilateral upper extremity function for use when assessing patients with stroke. METHOD A list of 938 items was generated based on a literature review, opinions of occupational therapists and patients with stroke. A panel of professional experts then validated that the items were bilateral and functional. Similar items were then combined and duplicates eliminated. RESULTS The list was reduced to 69 items and 40 items were selected based on the content validity index. Based on the bilateral function, importance, expansion, and deletion criteria, the expert panel selected 27 items that best represented bilateral activities of daily living. CONCLUSIONS A final list of 27 activities of daily living requiring bilateral function was generated and validated. Future work will focus on development of a tool to assess bilateral upper extremity function of patients with stroke.