The present study is part of a broader investigation on the effects of living in a home for the elderly on functional performance and opportunities for successful aging. Functional performance is defined as the daily activities people actually execute in the domains of housekeeping, self-care, and leisure and social activity. In this first study, a comparison was made between community dwelling elderly and aged people living in an institution, in order to investigate the effect of living in an institution on functional performance (FP) in different domains and on personal control (PC) of the received care. The data were gathered in a structured interview, administered to 74 non-institutionalized and 79 institutionalized elderly, aged 71 to 97 years, living in Flanders. We found institutionalized elderly to be less active in every domain of functioning and experiencing less control of the received care. Significant negative correlations between age, FP and PC were only found in the sample of community-dwellers. It seems that in homes for the elderly, care is provided in a package about which the residents have minimal control, which leads to a homogenisation of daily functioning in the institution.
