When a physician prescribes a medication or treatment to his or her patient, the most important question is: Is the patient better, worse, or the same?
So the physican needs to ask and answer that question. Sometimes in a life-threatening emergecy, it is immediately after the intervention and then the physician immediately evaluates the patient. Better? Worse? Or the same? And designs his or her next intervention based on the answer to that question.
In non-life threatening interventions the physician will re-evaluate the patient at a later time [sometimes days, weeks, or months] depending on the intervention. And again the question is: Better? Worse? Or the same? And again the answer to that question guides the physician’s next recommendation.
To answer this basic question, I recommend using WHODAS 2.0: World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 [This link is to the self-administered PDF version]. This instrument is generally useful for all clinicians because:
The new WHODAS 2.0 supersedes WHODAS II and shows the following advantages:
- A generic assessment instrument for health and disability
- Used across all diseases, including mental, neurological and addictive disorders
- Short, simple and easy to administer (5 to 20 minutes)
- Applicable in both clinical and general population settings
- A tool to produce standardized disability levels and profiles
- Applicable across cultures, in all adult populations
- Directly linked at the level of the concepts to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)
WHODAS 2.0 covers 6 Domains of Functioning, including:
- Cognition – understanding & communicating
- Mobility– moving & getting around
- Self-care– hygiene, dressing, eating & staying alone
- Getting along– interacting with other people
- Life activities– domestic responsibilities, leisure, work & school
- Participation– joining in community activities
See Measuring Health and Disability: Manual for WHO Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0).
