We investigated the properties of an FI made up of information from widely used laboratory tests. That FI (the FI-LAB) had properties similar to other FIs, including the FI-CSHA. The latter consists of up to 38 items from the CSHA clinical examination and corresponds to most of the items used in a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment, which can be summarized as an FI [5,6,16,17].