Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

An assessment of the function of behaviour that challenges, including functional analyses and other methods of assessing behavioural functions.

When a care professional looks at what you are able to do for yourself, and how well you are able to manage everyday tasks such as dressing yourself, preparing food and looking after your home. They will look at how your ability to do these things might have changed as a result of illness or disability.

When is this term used? How does it differ from a needs assessment? Functional assessment appears to be a term used specifically by OTs rather than social workers. There is a scoring tool called the UK-FIM+FAM (Functional Independence Measure + Functional Assessment Measure) which captures 30 domains of funcional capability - further research needed to see whether it is in current use.