Visualization of the location and level of pain in common wrist pathologies using color-coded heatmaps.

Background: Pain of the hand and wrist affects a large patient population. If the onset is unrelated to recent trauma, the first medical contact is rarely established with a specialized hand surgeon.

Objective: The objective of this investigation was to (1) visualize the localization of hand pain using pain-related heatmaps in common wrist pathologies, (2) to test whether differences between these pathologies exist with regard to sociodemographic and pain-related aspects, and (3) to evaluate the major patient-reported complaints associated with the pathologies.