Altitude illness, as the UIAA Medical Commission names it.

The UIAA Medical Commission

The UIAA (International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation) has a Medical Commission that publishes numbered recommendation papers, translated into several languages. The UIAA says they focus on health problems at high altitude and are meant to guide climbers and medical staff, especially on treks, expeditions and adventure holidays, and that the advice is designed to help prevent injury and save lives. Some are addressed to doctors, interested non-medical readers and trek or expedition operators. This page reports only what they name.

The three altitude illnesses

The commission's Consensus Statement No. 2, by Kuepper, Gieseler, Angelini, Hillebrandt and Milledge (2012), covers what it calls the most important and most common altitude-related illnesses. It names three:

Acute mountain sickness (AMS)

The paper describes AMS as a serious medical condition that can quickly lead to HACE. It says that, depending on the ascent profile, more than 70 percent of mountaineers may get symptoms of AMS.

High altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE)

The paper labels HAPE situations potentially life-threatening.

High altitude cerebral edema (HACE)

The paper calls HACE life-threatening.

The paper states that below about 5,000 to 6,000 metres these illnesses result from inadequate acclimatisation. It is intended for doctors, interested non-medical readers and trekking or expedition operators. The 2012 statement was updated in 2024 by D. Hillebrandt to take in the revised Lake Louise Score.

The Lake Louise score

The same paper says the Lake Louise Symptom Score was set up in 1991 to put a number on AMS, and revised in 2018. The score itself is not reproduced here.

The commission's other papers

The UIAA's medical page lists these titles, among others, with their years:

As fetched on 21 October 2026, the page listed no paper titled specifically on frostbite, hypothermia or sport climbing injuries.

Children at altitude

Recommendation No. 9, Children at Altitude, by H.J. Meijer and D. Jean (2008), is written for doctors, interested non-medical readers and trekking or expedition operators. The UIAA's web article on it (18 May 2017) says it covers altitude illness in children, cold and sun exposure, and children with existing heart or lung disorders. A 2026 report of a UIAA meeting says the commission is updating the paper from a systematic review of the evidence; that is from a search summary and unconfirmed.

Xenon

On 31 July 2025 the UIAA announced that the Medical Commission's position paper on xenon had been published in High Altitude Medicine and Biology. The commission recommends against breathing xenon to prepare for or during high-altitude expeditions, except within a controlled study with qualified medical support. The paper backs a UIAA statement of January 2025.

Altitude in the accident records

Illness has long appeared in climbing accident records. The American Alpine Club's 1973 accident table listed medical illness, including pulmonary edema and frostbite, among its immediate causes. Curran-Sills and Karahalios (2015) found hypothermia, exhaustion, frostbite and dehydration the main non-traumatic conditions in Alpine Club of Canada rescue records from 1970 to 2005. Each of these needs medical care. For injuries, see the injuries page; for alpine terrain, see alpine, ice and mixed climbing.