Functional competence of community-dwelling persons with multiple sclerosis using the assessment of motor and process skills

The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) is an observational measure of functional competence in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) that was designed to overcome the limitations of self reports and proxy reports. The AMPS allows simultaneous evaluation of the underlying motor and process (organizational/adaptive) skills necessary for competent task performance. We examined the IADL performance of 22 community-dwelling patients with mild to moderate MS in comparison to nondisabled subjects matched for age and gender. Functional competence of the MS subjects, as measured by the AMPS, was poorer than that of the control group. Many MS subjects who would not have been expected to have IADL difficulties on the basis of ratings of neurologic impairment were impaired in their IADL performance. For some patients, IADL impairment reflected deficits in their motor and process skills, whereas for others, process skill impairments alone were responsible for deficient task performance.