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2025 release of the ICF in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Turkish and Czech
The World Health Organization has now released the 2025 version of the ICF in French, Spanish, Chinese, Turkish and Czech in addition to the English version.
To access the ICF Browser in any of the languages, click onto the visual of the respective language below. The English-language version can be accessed here: https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/icf/en.
ICF Core Sets for Deafblindness
Deafblindness describes the presence of both vision and hearing difficulties of any severity across the lifespan. The Nordic Definition describes deafblindness as “a combined vision and hearing impairment of such severity that it is hard for the impaired senses to compensate for each other. Thus, deafblindness is a distinct disability”. According to the World Federation of the Deafblind, between 0.2 and 2% of the world’s population live with some form of deafblindness. Some of the most common genetic causes of deafblindness include Usher Syndrome and CHARGE Syndrome; however, most persons living with deafblindness are over the age of 65.
Deafblindness affects almost all aspects of human functioning, and can severely threaten quality of life, independence and the ability to participate. Given the heterogeneity of deafblindness, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) can serve as a common language and will prove to be helpful in standardizing the development and selection of outcome measures for service delivery with persons living with deafblindness.
The development of the ICF Core Sets for Deafblindness is a global collaborative effort. The policy lead for this project is Ricard Lopez, representing the European Deafblind Network. The scientific lead is Dr. Walter Wittich, based at the School of Optometry, Université de Montréal, Canada. Together with the World Federation of the Deafblind and Deafblind International, they brought together representatives and data from 54 countries across all six regions of the WHO.
Next available German-language ICF Workshops
The next available German-language ICF workshops conducted by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich, Germany will take place online. The 2-day (3.5 hours/day) workshop will cover a wide range of topics and comprises a basic module as well as specific modules.
Day 1: Basic module – 8 trainings sessions in in-person trainings or 3.5 hours in online trainings
Day 2: Advanced modules (optional) – 4 training sessions in in-person trainings or 3.5 hours in online trainings
Further information about the workshops and the registration form can be found here:
http://ihrs.ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de/veranstaltungen/icf_schulung1/index.html.