Glossary

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Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) are everyday activities that adults can normally perform without help. These include getting out of bed, bathing, grooming, dressing, cooking, eating, cleaning, shopping, paying bills, etc. Health professionals generally refer to the ability or inability to perform ADLs as a measurement of someone’s functional status.

Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) works to protect New York City’s children from abuse and neglect. ACS provides neighborhood-based support to help ensure children grow up in safe, permanent homes with strong families.

Adult Day Care programs provide supervised recreation for people with a wide range of disabilities including cognitive impairment. Selfhelp’s Adult Day Care Center features individual and group activities that offer social, physical, and cognitive stimulation and enable participants to remain alert, involved and in contact with the world around them. Activities include music, exercise, discussion groups, games, art and group holidays celebrations and special events. Adult Day Care provides much needed respite for family caregivers, as well, enabling many caregivers to continue working outside the home.

Adult Protective Services (APS) is a state-mandated case management program that arranges for services and support for physically and/or mentally impaired adults who are at risk of harm. APS seeks to promptly resolve the risks faced by eligible clients with service plans that will enable these individuals to live independently and safely within their homes and communities. APS is available to individuals 18 years and older without regard to income, who are mentally and/or physically impaired, and, as a result, are unable to manage their own resources, carry out the activities of daily living, or protect themselves from abuse, neglect, exploitation or other hazardous situations without assistance from others. Selfhelp is one of three New York City social service agencies that can serve as a guardian under APS.

Alzheimer’s Disease is a progressive, degenerative form of dementia that affects brain function. It causes a variety of symptoms including loss of short-term memory, the ability to reason, the ability to care for oneself and the deterioration of communication and language skills. Cognitive training and brain fitness technologies can slow the rate of degeneration for some people, but the disease is not currently curable.