This paper describes the development of multidimensional measures of nursing-home patients' functioning. The technique was designed to gather information directly from the patients, using demonstrated ability in place of self-report wherever possible. Six domains are tapped: physiologic, activities of daily living, affective, cognitive, social, and satisfaction. Test-retest reliability ranges from .59 for social interaction to .85 for affect. Validity was tested by replication on successive waves of data as well as discriminant and content validity.