ABSTRACT
Non-Battle Injuries (NBI) represent a significant attritional threat to personnel deployed on operations. Operation (Op) GRITROCK involved personnel deployed across both land and maritime environments and was the first deployment of the Primary Casualty Receiving Facility (PCRF) on contingency operations of this type. This article outlines the incidence, demographics and functional outcome of individuals assessed for NBI by the embarked rehabilitation team. A total of 138 injured individuals were assessed over the period Oct 2014 - Mar 2015. ARGUS personnel made up 83.3% (n=115) of the injured population. Most common presentations were low back pain (LBP) (21%) and soft tissue lower limb injuries (14.5%), primarily occurring through individual sport (42.8%) or normal duty (34.8%). The Force Medical Rehabilitation Team (FMRT) effectively retained troops in theatre; although 22.5% (n=31) were considered urgent cases, only one individual required medical evacuation. 53.6% of presentations were exacerbations of a previous injury. Future work will examine the long-term outcome of these injuries.
Subject(s)
Military Medicine , Wounds and Injuries/epidemiology , Wounds and Injuries/rehabilitation , Adult , Afghanistan , Female , Humans , Incidence , Iraq , Male , Middle Aged , Recovery of Function , Treatment Outcome , United Kingdom , Young AdultABSTRACT
Musculoskeletal injury represents a significant attritional threat to troops on deployment and comprises a significant proportion of aeromedical evacuations from theatre. Whilst the incidence and outcome of battle injury (BI) is increasingly well understood, the picture regarding non-battle injury (NBI) is less clear despite the significantly higher incidence rate. This paper outlines and compares current evidence regarding the incidence, contributing factors and functional outcome of recent operational BI and NBI and highlights the need for further study into UK specific data and demographics.