Activities of daily living (ADL)
The Barthel index (BI) was used to measure the
dependency level of the participants’ ADL functioning. It
includes seven items (feeding, grooming, toileting, bathing,
dressing, bowel control, and bladder control) to assess
self-care ability, and three items (transfers, mobility, and
climbing stairs) to detect activity capacity. The BI scores
range from 0 to 100: 0–20 indicates totally dependent;
21–60 means heavily dependent; 61–90 conveys moderate
dependent; 91–99 means mild dependent; 100 indicates
total independence in functioning (Liu, 2007). A Cronbach’s
alpha of 0.88 was obtained from this sample