Evaluation of musculoskeletal injury trends in United States initial entry Soldiers

Abstract

Musculoskeletal injury is the primary health concern for the United States military. A 2016 United States Army report noted the leading cause of medically evacuated non-battle injuries (46%) was sports/physical training. Across the US Army, there are an estimated 750,000 musculoskeletal injuries a year, resulting in over 25 million limited-duty days annually. Approximately 9 percent (over 26,000) of US Soldiers at any given time are non-deployable due to musculoskeletal injury, which directly impacts US military readiness. Many of these injuries are preventable, overuse injuries that occur during physical training or sports activities. Musculoskeletal injuries that occur during military service negatively affect the Service Member's ability to perform while serving, as well as the quality the Services Members’ life during service and after separation and retirement. The greatest predictor of musculoskeletal injury is a previous injury. Thus, there is an effort to reduce musculoskeletal injury early in a Soldier's career. The Warrior Athletic Training (WAT) program was implemented in 2009 as a part of an Initial Entry Training Soldier injury reduction effort at Ft. Benning, GA, United States. This program imbedded point of care sports medicine professionals in each training Battalion, in 5 training Brigades. Extensive musculoskeletal injury records were kept noting injury type, seriousness, mechanism of injury, number of training days lost, type of intervention, and training unit. Prevention, evaluation, treatment, rehabilitation, and return to duty were completed in specialized sports medicine areas built in the training unit classrooms. If needed Soldiers were referred to the Troop Medical Clinics for advanced care, imaging, or to see a physician. Eight years of data, covering over 265,000 male Soldiers was assessed. This presentation will discuss injury trends; time lost from training, mechanisms of injury and suggested mitigations from this assessment and compare injury rates and trends to those found in the Australian Army.