Objective: to measure the functional capacity of elderly people cared for in different health and welfare care settings, with functional capacity de®ned in terms of activities of daily living. Subjects and methods: we assessed all people aged 065 in health-centre hospitals or nursing homes or receiving home nursing and home help services in Central Finland (n=5652) using the Evergreen activities of daily living index, which comprises nine physical and nine instrumental activities of daily

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... . Results: assessments of functional capacity were obtained for nearly all subjects: only 33 forms (0.6%) were returned with incomplete data. The mean activities of daily living sum score (range 0±54) was lowest for women receiving home nursing (17.3), and highest for women in long-term care at health-centre hospitals (48.4). Low scores described good and high scores poor functional capacity. Age showed no association with the mean activities of daily living sum score in any of the care settings. Conclusion: the Evergreen activities of daily living index was easy to use and successfully distinguishes between people in different care settings. Policies of assigning older people to different settings appear to be sound and sensible as the main de®ning criterion is level of functional capacity rather than age.