EDITORIAL The

relationship between impairment and disability The care of older people involves an understanding of the way diseases cause impairments, and how these cascade into disability and handicap. Knowledge of this process might lead to effective interventions and a rational basis for evaluating them. Recently Wade [1] pointed out that epidemiological studies tend to look for the causes of diseases, but have not focused upon the epidemiology of disability or handicap themselves. The paper by Kempen and colleagues in this issue of Age and Ageing [2] illustrates how important this is. In a study of community dwelling older people in Groningen, Kempen et al have shown that while a relationship between impairments and disability i