As of January 2022, Brain Research Center has established a partnership with the Amsterdam UMC and will coordinate commercial licensing of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire. The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire was developed in 2011, with the aim to improve the measurement of everyday functioning in people with (early) dementia, using innovative measurement techniques. The questionnaire has been extensively validated and used as an outcome measure in clinical trials.
Amsterdam IADL facts and figures
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Translations
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Trials have chosen the questionnaire, thus far
20
Validation studies
Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire in a nutshell
The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire includes items that cover modern everyday technology, as well as items applicable to a younger population (under 65 years). This is one of its strengths compared to other iADL questionnaires. We have put together a comparison chart to show how the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire differs from the ADCS-ADL questionnaire.
Goal:
Measuring problems in Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) in early dementia.
Target population:
Community-dwelling population, memory clinic population, people at risk for dementia
Administration:
Completed independently by study partner (e.g., spouse, child) or administered by a rater. Digital or paper-pencil.
Duration:
10-15 minutes
Assessment burden:
Study partners perceived the questionnaire easy to complete, with clear questions and important content.
Sources
1Determining the Minimal Important Change of Everyday Functioning in Dementia | Neurology
4 The influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment: An international validation of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire in eight countries – Dubbelman – 2020 – Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring – Wiley Online Library & Detecting functional decline from normal aging to dementia: Development and validation of a short version of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire – PubMed
5 Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire & A systematic review of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scales in dementia: room for improvement – PubMed
Background
Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) are vulnerable to the early effects of cognitive decline. For this reason, IADL is an important outcome measure for clinical (drug) trials, as acknowledged by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire was developed in 2012 and its content was carefully selected by relevant stakeholder to ensure content validity. One of the strengths of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire, compared to other (older) IADL questionnaires, is that items are included to cover nowadays everyday technology, as well as items applicable to a younger (<65 years) population.
Since the development in 2012, the questionnaire has been extensively validated in over 10 validation studies. In 2017, the short version was developed by extracting the 30 most frequently endorsed, relevant and informative activities from the original version while maintaining the psychometric qualities of the original version.
Findings validation studies Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire:
Excellent content validity
The content of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire was developed in collaboration with experts, patients, and caregivers.
Reliability
Shows a high test-retest reliability.
Good construct validity
Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire scores are related to cognition and Alzheimer’s Disease biomarkers (gray matter atrophy and amyloid load)
Responsiveness
Decline in IADL can already be detected in pre-dementia stages and is related to cognitive decline.
Clinically meaningful decline
Informal caregivers and clinicians determined the smallest amount of change (decline/improvement) that has an important effect on daily life.
Cross-cultural value
The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire has been translated and cross-culturally adapted in many languages and therefore scores can be reliably compared between countries
IRT scoring
Because of the adaptive nature of the questionnaire, the questionnaire is scored using item response theory (IRT) which provides a score with interval-level properties. IRT scoring accounts for the difficulty level of the items by assigning different ‘weights’ to each question. The scores show less floor and ceiling effects, and the scores tend to follow a normal distribution
Target population
The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire was originally developed to capture IADL problems in (early) dementia.
- The questionnaire can be used in clinical trials including at-risk populations for dementia as well as populations with mild to moderate dementia.
- The questionnaire is most suitable for community dwelling populations but is also suitable for institutionalized subjects.
- The questionnaire was originally developed to be completed by a study partner. While study partner report is advised for populations with moderate to severe dementia, a self-report version is available for pre-clinical or at-risk populations. This self-report version was recently developed and validated in a cognitively normal volunteer population.
While the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire is originally developed for use in dementia, the questionnaire is suitable for other neurodegenerative diseases as well.
Translations
The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire is originally developed in Dutch for the Netherlands, and English for the US as the second source language. The questionnaire has been translated into many languages, see the list below. A new translation can be requested, and takes around 12 weeks to become available. Brain Research Center has a preferred translation vendor, if another vendor is preferred, Brain Research Center must give explicit permission.
- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch (NL, BE)
- English (AU, CA, GB, US, HK, NZ)
- Finnish
- French (BE, CA, FR, CH)
- German (DE, CH)
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Italian (IT, CH)
- Japanese
- Korean
- Mandarin (TW, CN, HK)
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (PT)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Spanish (ES, US, AR)
- Swedish (SE, FI)
- Slovenian
- Turkish (TR)
Osman A, Radman D, Belchior P, Gélinas I. A systematic review of psychometric properties of questionnaires assessing activities of daily living among older adults with neurocognitive disorders. Aust Occup Ther J. 2025 Feb;72(1):e13013. doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.13013. Erratum in: Aust Occup Ther J. 2025 Feb;72(1):e70004. doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.70004.
Postema MC, Dubbelman MA, Claesen J, Ritchie C, Verrijp M, Visser L, Visser PJ, Zwan MD, van der Flier WM, Sikkes SAM. Facilitating clinical use of the Amsterdam Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire: Normative data and a diagnostic cutoff value. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2024 Jul;30(6):615-620. doi: 10.1017/S1355617724000031.
Arola A, Laakso HM, Heinonen H, Pitkänen J, Ahlström M, Lempiäinen J, Paajanen T, Virkkala J, Koikkalainen J, Lötjönen J, Korvenoja A, Melkas S, Jokinen H. Subjective vs informant-reported cognitive complaints have differential clinical significance in covert cerebral small vessel disease. Cereb Circ Cogn Behav. 2023 Sep 9;5:100182. doi: 10.1016/j.cccb.2023.100182.
Arola A, Levänen T, Laakso HM, Pitkänen J, Koikkalainen J, Lötjönen J, Korvenoja A, Erkinjuntti T, Melkas S, Jokinen H. Neuropsychiatric symptoms are associated with exacerbated cognitive impairment in covert cerebral small vessel disease. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2023 Jun;29(5):431-438. doi: 10.1017/S1355617722000480.
Dubbelman MA, Verrijp M, Terwee CB, Jutten RJ, Postema MC, Barkhof F, Berckel BNM, Gillissen F, Teeuwen V, Teunissen C, van de Flier WM, Scheltens P, Sikkes SAM. Determining the Minimal Important Change of Everyday Functioning in Dementia: Pursuing Clinical Meaningfulness. Neurology. 2022 Aug 30;99(9):e954-e964. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200781.
Dubbelman MA, Terwee CB, Verrijp M, Visser LNC, Scheltens P, Sikkes SAM. Giving meaning to the scores of the Amsterdam instrumental activities of daily living questionnaire: a qualitative study. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2022 Mar 24;20(1):47. doi: 10.1186/s12955-022-01958-2.
Milošević V, Malobabić M, Stojanović I, Bašić J. Importance of a functional measure in the evaluation of patients in a memory clinic: Validation of the Serbian version of the Amsterdam instrumental activities of daily living questionnaire. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2022 Mar;214:107165. doi: 10.1016/j.clineuro.2022.107165.
Verrijp M, Dubbelman MA, Visser LNC, Jutten RJ, Nijhuis EW, Zwan MD, van Hout HPJ, Scheltens P, van der Flier WM, Sikkes SAM. Everyday Functioning in a Community-Based Volunteer Population: Differences Between Participant- and Study Partner-Report. Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Jan 5;13:761932. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.761932.
van Dam M, Sikkes SA, Rammeloo E, Reinders E, Jelgerhuis JR, Geurts JJ, Uitdehaag BM, Hulst HE. Cognitive functioning in everyday life: The development of a questionnaire on instrumental activities of daily living in multiple sclerosis. Mult Scler J Exp Transl Clin. 2021 Aug 3;7(3):20552173211038027. doi: 10.1177/20552173211038027.
Stringer G, Leroi I, Sikkes SAM, Montaldi D, Brown LJE. Enhancing 'meaningfulness' of functional assessments: UK adaptation of the Amsterdam IADL questionnaire. Int Psychogeriatr. 2021 Jan;33(1):39-50. doi: 10.1017/S1041610219001881.
Bruderer-Hofstetter M, Dubbelman MA, Meichtry A, Koehn F, Münzer T, Jutten RJ, Scheltens P, Sikkes SAM, Niedermann K. Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Amsterdam Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire short version German for Switzerland. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2020 Oct 2;18(1):323. doi: 10.1186/s12955-020-01576-w.
Dubbelman MA, Verrijp M, Facal D, Sánchez-Benavides G, Brown LJE, van der Flier WM, Jokinen H, Lee A, Leroi I, Lojo-Seoane C, Milošević V, Molinuevo JL, Pereiro Rozas AX, Ritchie C, Salloway S, Stringer G, Zygouris S, Dubois B, Epelbaum S, Scheltens P, Sikkes SAM. The influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment: An international validation of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire in eight countries. Alzheimers Dement (Amst). 2020 May 13;12(1):e12021. doi: 10.1002/dad2.12021.
Villeneuve SC, Houot M, Cacciamani F, Verrijp M, Dubois B, Sikkes S, Epelbaum S; MEMENTO study group and the INSIGHT-preAD study group. Latent class analysis identifies functional decline with Amsterdam IADL in preclinical Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimers Dement (N Y). 2019 Oct 8;5:553-562. doi: 10.1016/j.trci.2019.08.009.
Jutten RJ, Dicks E, Vermaat L, Barkhof F, Scheltens P, Tijms BM, Sikkes SAM. Impairment in complex activities of daily living is related to neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease-specific regions. Neurobiol Aging. 2019 Mar;75:109-116. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2018.11.018.
Facal D, Carabias MAR, Pereiro AX, Lojo-Seoane C, Campos-Magdaleno M, Jutten RJ, Sikkes SAM, Juncos-Rabadán O. Assessing Everyday Activities Across the Dementia Spectrum with the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire. Curr Alzheimer Res. 2018;15(13):1261-1266. doi: 10.2174/1567205015666180925113411.
Jutten RJ, Peeters CFW, Leijdesdorff SMJ, Visser PJ, Maier AB, Terwee CB, Scheltens P, Sikkes SAM. Detecting functional decline from normal aging to dementia: Development and validation of a short version of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire. Alzheimers Dement (Amst). 2017 Mar 31;8:26-35. doi: 10.1016/j.dadm.2017.03.002.
Oort Q, Dirven L, Meijer W, Sikkes SA, Uitdehaag BM, Reijneveld JC, Taphoorn MJ. Development of a questionnaire measuring instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in patients with brain tumors: a pilot study. J Neurooncol. 2017 Mar;132(1):145-153. doi: 10.1007/s11060-016-2352-1.
Koster N, Knol DL, Uitdehaag BM, Scheltens P, Sikkes SA. The sensitivity to change over time of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire(©). Alzheimers Dement. 2015 Oct;11(10):1231-40. doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2014.10.006.
Sikkes SA, Pijnenburg YA, Knol DL, de Lange-de Klerk ES, Scheltens P, Uitdehaag BM. Assessment of instrumental activities of daily living in dementia: diagnostic value of the Amsterdam Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire. J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol. 2013 Dec;26(4):244-50. doi: 10.1177/0891988713509139.
Sikkes SA, Knol DL, Pijnenburg YA, de Lange-de Klerk ES, Uitdehaag BM, Scheltens P. Validation of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire©, a new tool to measure instrumental activities of daily living in dementia. Neuroepidemiology. 2013;41(1):35-41. doi: 10.1159/000346277.
Osman A, Radman D, Belchior P, Gélinas I. A systematic review of psychometric properties of questionnaires assessing activities of daily living among older adults with neurocognitive disorders. Aust Occup Ther J. 2025 Feb;72(1):e13013. doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.13013. Erratum in: Aust Occup Ther J. 2025 Feb;72(1):e70004. doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.70004.
Watch the Amsterdam IADL webinar
Want to hear what our experts have to say about the Amsterdam IADL questionnaire? Then request access to the webinar: Measuring and tracking everyday functioning in AD clinical trials with the A-IADL Questionnaire via the button below.
Contact us
If you are interested in using the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire in your upcoming clinical trial, please email us via amsterdamIADL@brainresearchcenter.nl or click on the button below.
Team IADL
Dr. Niels Prins is the director of Brain Research Center. He and his colleagues are committed to Alzheimer's disease and other brain diseases because he knows that clinical drug research can make a difference.
With a background in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and experience in immunology, dermatology, and Clinical Trial Applications submissions, Peter Jongste is responsible for contracting and initiating trials for all sites of Progress Clinical Research. In this role, he also facilitates the submission process to the METC and the competent authority from the perspective of Progress Clinical Research by providing essential submission documents.
With his expertise in study start-up and clinical trial submissions, Peter Jongste plays a key role in initiating clinical trials within the sites of Progress Clinical Research. As part of the Start-Up & Business Development team, Peter is an important point of contact for potential parties wishing to collaborate with Progress Clinical Research and contributes to collaboration and innovation within Progress Clinical Research.
