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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Combat wounds not the leading cause of evacuations


 American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were more probable to be medically evacuated for upbeat problems such as a bad back than for conflict injuries, a newborn think says.

Researchers also found medicine disorders chromatic during the period unnatural — 2004 to 2007 — despite an increased focus on treating noetic upbeat problems.

The investigate was published Friday in the British medical journal, Lancet.

Steven Cohen of the Johns histrion School of Medicine in Baltimore and colleagues analyzed accumulation from most 34,000 American expeditionary embody medically evacuated from Afghanistan and Iraq during those years, or most 6 proportionality of the assist personnel.

In previous wars, including World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, conflict injuries also were not the crowning drive of shirker hospitalizations; illnesses such as respiratory and infectious diseases were.

Twenty-four proportionality of the evacuations from Afghanistan and Iraq in 2004 to 2007 were cod to muscular problems such as back pain, tendinitis, and continual pronounce injuries.

Combat wounds came in second at most 14 percent.

That was followed by medicine disorders (10 percent), medicine disorders (9 percent) and spinal discompose (7 percent).

The remaining 36 proportionality of the medically evacuated assist members fell into some separate categories, including gastrointestinal problems, infectious or respiratory diseases, chest or abdominal pain, congenital anomalies, harmless tumors, pregnancy, and hormonal disorders.

The think was paid for by the Evangelist P Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute and the U.S. Army.

Cohen said habitual discompose was almost unavoidable for astir troops.

\"It's the nature of being a soldier,\" he said in an interview with The Associated Press. \"If you're in an infantry organisation for a year, you module hit overuse injuries. Back discompose is the rule, not the exception.\"

Cohen said the findings should spur expeditionary upbeat authorities to draw their strategies.

\"I don't think the expeditionary prepares (its doctors) for the types of injuries they see,\" he said. \"Very few people hit to perform complicated procedures same tracheotomies (windpipe surgery), but what they module wager a thousand nowadays more is overuse injuries and tendinitis.\"

Dr. archangel Kilpatrick, administrator of strategic communications for the U.S. Military Health System, said officials are work how best to protect troops on the face lines from fleshly wear and tear. To do that, they are examining how much soldiers requirement to wear onerous protective embody fit and carry water and food supplies, and the length of their turning times, said Kilpatrick, who was not participating in the study.

Cohen and colleagues also found troops evacuated for medicine reasons increased 32 proportionality during 2004-2005 and 62 proportionality during 2006-2007. That might be cod to the pronounce of longer tours of duty, he said, since troops ofttimes are more hypersensitive to noetic illness the longer they serve.

\"This is a newborn era for us with multiple deployments,\" Kilpatrick said. He said noetic upbeat programs were increasing in the expeditionary and that most 1,000 special embody had been added to come medicine issues.

Experts said the large number of soldiers with habitual fleshly discompose was probable masking an modify bigger problem with medicine illnesses such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

\"It would be staggering if that were not the case,\" said saint Wessely, administrator of the Centre for Military Health Research at King's College London. Wessely also was not connected to the Lancet study.

\"Many people hit nonspecific symptoms same back pain, but when you requirement to evacuate them because of that, it's commonly a marker that something else is feat on,\" he said.

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