GRAMMAR LESSON J

Discussing Activities of Daily Life (ADLs)

We ask patients about their daily life because this affects how they comply with therapy and communicate with their care team.

Sometimes a patient may have trouble coping with their daily routine, for example, after surgery or if they have dizziness, severe pain or dementia.

There are many collocations and idioms in talking about ADLs, for example

• get out of bed  OR  get up
• take a shower OR to shower
• do house work OR do house chores
• go shopping OR do grocery shopping

We conjugate the verb at the start of the expression (go, take, get, do, make). The rest of the expression does not change.

a) Simple present

• I get out of bed at 8:00 and get dressed by 9:00.
• He gets out of bed at 8:00 and gets dressed by 9:00.

b) Present progressive

• You’re doing the grocery shopping on my own now, is that correct?

c) Simple past

• Before the accident, he got out of bed by 6:00 and got dressed by 6:45.

d) Future (‘will’)

• I’ll do grocery shopping tomorrow if this pain gets any better.

See Appendix 5.5 for “Activities of Daily Life collocations”.

get out of bed  OR  get up

take a shower

take a bath

 get dressed

get a meal OR get something to eat

make a meal

do house work OR do chores

go shopping OR do grocery shopping

go for a walk

go to work

get some exercise OR do exercise

go to bed

SPEAKING EXERCISE J

Practice repeating ALOUD each example sentence in the lesson J (ADLs). Focus on the common collocations, RUNNING THEM TOGETHER until they flow smoothly and naturally as ONE EXPRESSION.  The collocations are underlined.