792 EP105 – Why does it hurt? – Assessing and understanding upper & lower limb pain in athletes. more than an injury

Background Prevention of upper and lower limb injuries has improved greatly over recent decades through effective neuromuscular training prevention strategies and improved understanding of context and implementation. The next step in keeping athletes performing to their potential is comprehensively and effectively recognizing, understanding and assessing all pain presentations. Objective To Develop an upper and lower limb athlete pain assessment framework (ULLAPAF) for clinicians and athletes to enhance understanding, management and performance. Setting The ULLAPAF will be used with athletes across all competition levels and sports and will incorporate guidance for assessments both within the clinic and in the sporting environment. Participants This stakeholder-informed framework was developed by recruiting athletes across multiple sports and competition level in Ireland and an expert panel of accredited Sports Physiotherapists through the International Federation of Sports Physical Therapists (IFSPT) and other relevant bodies. Interventions The Framework development involved three stages; A Scoping review the of the assessment of upper and lower limb pain in athletes (470 included studies) against the IOC Athlete Pain Consensus Guidelines (Hainline et al.,2017)(Purcell et al. 2023) A series of Focus Groups comprising athletes and Sports Physiotherapists to determine experiences of pain, pain assessment and priorities for the pain assessment framework. A Realtime Delphi Study of expert international Sports Physiotherapists to develop a consensus for the ULLAPF incorporating previous findings. Criteria/domains The 5 Pain IOC Athlete Pain Assessment domains (Neurophysiological, Biomechanical, Affective, Cognitive, and Socioenvironmental) and a 6th clinically oriented domain (aspects of pain assessment) were used to structure the framework. Results A draft framework incorporating findings from the scoping review, focus groups and a real time Delphi survey spanning the 6 domains has been developed. Conclusions A comprehensive stakeholder informed ULLAPF has been developed to aid Clinicians and athletes manage pain and perform to their potential.