Of particular interest to WeD were sessions relating to the practicalities of designing scales for use in different cultures and methods for ensuring comparability of results. Michel Power's symposium entitled "Application of Quality of Life Theories Across Cultures", the plenary discussing "Item Response Theory and Cross-Cultural Comparability of HRQOL Measures" and the many sessions on cross-cultural methodologies provided excellent information. Further to this, specific issues relating to the difficulties of translation outlined in the oral sessions are most pertinent to WeD. Finally the attention paid to individualised methods provided insight of use to the ongoing development of the individualised "Person Generated Index" quality of life measure by WeD. For further information see the conference web site at http://www.isoqol.org/2004conf.htm