Measuring quality of life is a new approach of interest to all health professionals involved in orthopedic surgery. This paper is an introduction to the multidimensional concept of health related quality of life. Various types of measurement instruments are described: first the psychometric questionnaires, distinguishing generic measures useful in various conditions and disease-specific measures for a given disease or condition, and the recently developed individual instrument; second, econometric measures based on the decision theory. The potential objectives for use and the required measurement properties of these instruments are described. The need and corresponding methods for a cross-cultural adaptation into French when using questionnaire originally developed in English are reported. A literature review focuses on studies reporting such measures used to evaluate orthopedic surgery, particularly in the way patients perceive the results of hip and knee arthroplasty. Further perspectives for clinical and epidemiological research are numerous. Several avenues for research and for use in clinical practice are proposed.