The VISA-C questionnaire: a self-administered assessment to measure finger/ hand/wrist pain in climbers

Review written by Dr Ian Gatt info

Key Points

  1. Visa-C questionnaire can be used broadly among a wide demographic population to distinguish between individuals with no pain, some pain, and activity-limiting pain.
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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Rock climbing is an increasingly popular sport worldwide that places uniquely high loads on the finger flexor system and musculoskeletal tissues of the hand and wrists. Fingers are the most commonly injured body part (pulley ruptures and strains) in climbers, with mechanisms of injury including falls (10%), chronic overuse (33%) and acute injuries caused by strenuous climbing moves (28%) [1-3]. To date, no standard self- administered questionnaire exists to evaluate the severity of climbing-related hand and wrist injury and the readiness to train.

To address this clinical gap, the primary purpose of this study was to create and test a self-administered hand and wrist pain questionnaire for rock climbers, which the authors called the Victorian Institute of Sports-like Assessment, C for climbing (VISA-C).

Fingers are the most commonly injured body part in climbers, with mechanisms of injury including falls (10%), chronic overuse (33%) and acute injuries caused by strenuous climbing moves (28%).
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The VISA-C can support clinical practice by assessing readiness for maximal loading, tracking finger injury recovery, and monitoring training cycles to reduce overtraining risk.

METHODS

  • An eight-question assessment was designed by modifying the validated and widely used VISA-P (patellar tendon) and VISA-A (Achilles tendon) questionnaires (4,5), for evaluating the severity of pain from wrist and finger tendinopathy and pulley injuries and how the level of
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