Traditional clinical techniques for the assessment of psychological functioning have proven to be highly inadequate for certain groups of elderly individuals, particularly in the area of differentiating "normal" from pathological aspects of aging. One such group is the population of community residents now being served by the Baer Consultation and Diagnostic unit of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center. These community residents have been referred to the Center primarily with problems of various degrees of organic brain syndrome. A brief description of the three-day evaluation procedure at the Center (which includes physical, social, and psychological services), the team conference, and the family conference is included. The presentation focuses on the on-going process of evaluating available test instruments and either accepting, rejecting, or revising these for use with this particular population as well as the implementation of new, broad-range tools in the assessment package. The paper also describes the usefulness of the latter, in helping to make decisions in regard to treatment and/or alternative living arrangements for the population of elderly community residents served. (Author/JLL)