Assessment of Life Habits (LIFE-H)
What It Measures
The Assessment of Life Habits (LIFE-H) asks what a person actually manages to do in their own life — at home, at school or work, and in the neighborhood — and how much difficulty or help it takes. It comes out of the Disability Creation Process model, which treats participation as the product of a person and their environment rather than a property of the person alone.
Twelve categories are split into daily activities (nutrition, fitness, personal care, communication, housing, mobility) and social roles (responsibilities, interpersonal relationships, community life, education, employment, recreation). For each life habit, the respondent reports perceived difficulty and what assistance was used — human help, an assistive device, or an adaptation. Habits that are not part of the person's life are marked not applicable rather than scored as failures.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Questionnaires and assessment tools are priced separately, but bulk pricing is available for professionals and organizations. Reproduction requires RIPPH permission.
Learn More: Form length varies considerably — the long form runs about 240 items and the short form 77 (62 for the children's version). Administration time follows: roughly 20 to 120 minutes for the long form and 20 to 60 for the short. The short form is the version most clinicians reach for.
