Barthel Index for Activities of Daily Living (BI)
What It Measures
The Barthel Index (BI) rates how much help a person needs with ten basic self-care and mobility tasks: feeding, bathing, grooming, dressing, bowel and bladder control, toilet use, transfers, walking, and stairs. Each item is scored in increments reflecting whether the person is independent, needs some help, or is dependent, for a total from 0 to 100.
Higher totals mean more independence. A score of 100 means someone manages self-care without an attendant, but the original authors were clear this does not mean they can live alone — the index does not cover cooking, housekeeping, or managing a household. It also has a known ceiling effect, so people scoring 100 can still have real limitations the index will not detect.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The Barthel Index may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with use of citation. Permission is required to modify the Barthel Index or to use it for commercial purposes.
Learn More: Two scoring conventions are in circulation. The original 1965 version scores 0–100 in increments of 5 and a modified version scoring each item in one-point increments for a total of 20. Both appear in the literature, so check which one a study or chart is using before comparing scores.
