Abstract
BackgroundThe activities carried out by soldiers in the army involve great physical demands and require intense trainings to perform combat-specific tasks. Musculoskeletal injury is a potential threat to the health and physical integrity of the soldier. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of lower limb musculoskeletal injuries among soldiers and to propose a training protocol to prevent the most frequent injuries.MethodsThis observational (cross-sectional) study recruited a sample of 103 soldiers who required medical attention, from a total 202 new battalion soldiers. The medical records (paper and online) had a form of running text. All data collected were recorded by the registered physicians of the battalion medical post. The records were analyzed by the following variables: medical diagnosis, injury site, mechanism, type of treatment, time loss, existence of previous injury, and recurring injury.ResultsA total of 112 musculoskeletal injuries were diagnosed in 71 soldiers, and other types of diseases/injuries were diagnosed in the other soldiers. Joint pain accounted for 55.4% of the diagnoses. The knee was the most affected site, while trauma and overload were the most common mechanisms of injury. Drug treatment was used most frequently, accounting for 58% of the cases. The majority of the sample obtained a temporary leave of absence for 1 to 6 days or not at all. Previous injuries and recurrence were not presented as risk factors for injury. With the data received, a protocol for the prevention of injuries to the lower limbs was proposed.ConclusionThis study indicated that the most frequent site of injury is the knee, and joint pain is the most common diagnosis. These results may support the necessity to develop a neuromuscular training protocol to prevent lower limb injuries, which we suggest to be applied in future studies.
Highlights
The activities carried out by soldiers in the army involve great physical demands and require intense trainings to perform combat-specific tasks
Musculoskeletal injuries are a potential threat to the health and physical integrity of the soldier [12] because the lower limbs are commonly affected by injuries, and soldiers complain of pain, most in the knee joint [1, 3,4,5, 8, 9, 14,15,16,17,18], followed by the lower vertebral column [8,9,10,11, 14, 18], ankle [1, 3, 5, 8,9,10,11, 18], and leg [14, 18]
Soldiers in Brazil carry out daily military physical training (MPT), to acquire skills, speed, and agility, which are necessary for their profession
Summary
The activities carried out by soldiers in the army involve great physical demands and require intense trainings to perform combat-specific tasks. The activities carried out by soldiers in the army demand great physical fitness and require intense training to perform combat-specific tasks. To assess the MPT performance, the military soldiers have to undertake the Physical Aptitude Test (PAT) [19] three times a year, which requires maximum effort to achieve the predicted index (values that soldiers need to reach based on Brazilian Military data). This test may cause injuries to new and untrained soldiers because of these high standards. There are differences in the specific activities [20], highlighting the importance of knowing the most common mechanisms of injuries in soldiers
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
