Thirty‐six disabled people with severely impaired mobility and 36 non‐handicapped matched control subjects were studied with respect to their self‐reported quality of life (OOL) and the ranking of 30 functions. No difference concerning QOL was found between the two groups. Correlations between QOL and six different groups of functions were very low in both groups, indicating a mechanism of adapting to a loss of functions. Comparison between the evaluations of the different functions in two groups showed that social abilities were more important to the group with severely impaired mobility, while “motor functions” were more important to the non‐handicapped contr