In this paper, a dead-zone based model of saturation phenomena is proposed. This method is capable of modelling diverse kinds of saturation, including both hard-limited and soft-limited. Due to use of a linear parameter approach, the proposed model is consistent with the available adaptive control techniques in the literature. In addition, based on the proposed model, an adaptive controller is designed for a class of nonlinear saturated systems, where, the shape of the saturation phenomenon is assumed to be unknown. The effectiveness of the proposed method and its robustness against initial condition variation and reference signal is evaluated via simulated examples for both spring-mass-damper and ship steering autopilot systems.