The activity of daily living scale(ADL) is one of the most commonly used scales to assess disability. In recent years, the daily life ability scale has been widely used in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, and plays a very important role in the clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine, rehabilitation of traditional Chinese medicine and nursing of traditional Chinese medicine. This paper discusses the improvement direction of ADL scale suitable for the field of traditional Chinese medicine from the aspects of the application of daily living ability scale and its limitations.