New classification system for reporting injuries

Mountaineering

The UIAA Medical Commission has released a new recommendation to improve the reporting of mountaineering injuries.

In the past, the expert panel says, “objective reporting of the injury site and its severity varied according to the injury definition and methodology used”. This led to different conclusions making “inter-study comparisons difficult or impossible”.

The newly published paper describes the common protocol developed by the Medical Commission to report injuries in studies. It uses a single climbing grade reference that converts UIAA climbing grades into a standardised metric form.

Spanish translations

Also added to the comprehensive list of recommendation papers that can be downloaded from the Commission’s page are translations into Spanish of the documents on health rules, altitude sickness, portable hyperbaric chambers, nutrition, traveller’s diarrhoea and water disinfection. Many of the English-language documents have already been translated into German and Japanese.

All of the documents provide essential tips on issues of importance to mountaineers or anyone going to high altitude.

The UIAA Medical Commission is a global forum of doctors who meet regularly to up date information on medical issues related to the mountains.

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