In the last year, there has been increased research interest in the sensitivity and applicability of activities of daily living (ADL) scales for the detection of early behavioral dysfunction and efficacies in drug trials. At the September 1993 meeting of the Sixth Congress of the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA) in Berlin, Germany, no fewer than three symposia and 16 papers focused on the use of ADL scales. For example, a symposium chaired by Hindmarch and Erzigkeit (1993) described an international collaborative effort to improve the sensitivity of ADL scales, and a paper by Sclan, Schmidt-Gollas, and Erzigkeit (1993) addressed the following issue: “Clinical drug trials and assessment of functional changes in cognitively impaired elderly persons: Do we need another rating scale?”