Functional capacity evaluation: an empirical approach.

This paper presents an empirical approach to selecting activities of daily living (ADL) to assess the functional capacity of noninstitutionalized individuals with polyarticular disability. The results of structural analyses illustrate the feasibility of substantially reducing the task of assessing functional capacity with a subset of ADL items without sacrificing the comprehensiveness of the assessment. The analyses reveal 5 common functional categories: physical mobility, transfers, home chores, kitchen chores, and personal care, which account for over 50% of the variance in the data.