[lbo-talk] USAT: Half of all medical evacuees have bad backs

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Nov 20 23:20:38 PST 2005


[Apropos the mystery of why number of people getting medical evacutions are so much higher than the statistics on people wounded]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-11-20-back-pain_x.htm

Posted 11/20/2005 10:15 PM

USA Today

Soldiers in Iraq carry extra load

By Elizabeth Weise

More than half of U.S. soldiers who have been medically evacuated from

Iraq and treated at two of the military's large pain treatment centers

suffer not from battle wounds but from bad backs, researchers report.

Most injured soldiers aren't hurt on the battlefield. In contemporary

warfare, injuries are more likely to be the result of a motor-vehicle

accident, falls or disease -- the same problems a doctor would see in

civilians in the same age range, says Maj. Scott Griffith, an author

of the study. He is the director of the chronic pain clinic at Walter

Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Though soldiers are in better shape than the average citizen, they

also face high-stress conditions. That, combined with sleeping on cots

with little back support, standing on their feet for hours at a time,

riding in convoys in crunched positions and wearing heavy body armor,

contributes to back troubles, says Capt. Brian Kargus, who served with

the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq.

Still, the high percentage of soldiers who leave Iraq because of back

pain is disturbing, says lead author Steven Cohen, a lieutenant

colonel in the Army Reserves and pain specialist at the Johns Hopkins

School of Medicine in Baltimore.

The study, which is published in the October issue of the journal

Anesthesia & Analgesia, examined 162 injured soldiers who were

medically evacuated from Iraq and treated at the two pain clinics.

Fifty-three percent, or 86 soldiers, had lower back pain. They were

treated at large interventional pain centers at Walter Reed Army

Medical Center and at Landstuhl Regional Army Medical Center in

Germany. Battle injuries accounted for 17% of evacuations.

More than 65 million Americans develop lower back pain every year,

according to the American College of Neurological Surgeons. It's the

most common cause of job-related disability, according to the National

Institute of Neurological Disorders.

And, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the most common

ailments -- experienced by 30% of veterans who return from Iraq and

Afghanistan -- are musculoskeletal problems, primarily joint and back

pain.

Not that back pain in the Army is anything new. Doctors used to see

something called "rucksack palsy," which is caused by nerve injuries

from carrying heavy backpacks for miles, says Lt. Col. Frank

Christopher, a medical doctor and chief of deployment health at Fort

Bragg in North Carolina.

"Inherent in being a soldier is carrying large weights. Historically,

the ideal 'carry weight' is a third of your body weight," Christopher

says.

The military is responding. Physical therapists are being deployed

with some battalions, and chiropractic services also are available.

© Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.



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