Sports and physical training injury hospitalizations in the army

Introduction: Injuries are the leading health problem in the military servi ces. Sports and physical training activities are an area in which a substan tial number of injuries can occur. Although athletic injuries are not often in investigated in military populations, the Armed Forces database provide s a unique opportunity to investigate sports injuries. Methods: An Army database of all hospital admissions for active duty Army p ersonnel in the 1989-1994 period was used to study injuries resulting from sports and Army physical training. Results: For the 6-year time period reviewed, there were 13,861 hospital ad missions for injuries resulting fi om sports or Army physical training: 94% (13,020) of these admissions were men and 6% (841) were women. The rates o f sports injuries were 38 and 18 per 10,000 person-years for men and women, respectively. Sports injuries accounted for an average of 29,435 lost duty days each year: Men lost an average of 13 days per injury and women lost a n average of 11 days per injury. Acute musculoskeletal injuries in the cate gories of fractures, sprains/strains, and dislocations accounted for 82% of all injuries. The knee was the most often injured body area in both gender s, with the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) identified as the most frequen tly injured body part overall. The top seven injuries were virtually identi cal for men and women, with only slight variations in order, Although the r ates of all hospitalized sports injuries were higher fur men than women, wo men had a higher proportion of ACL injuries fr-om basketball and softball, ankle fractures fi-om softball and head injuries fr om basketball. For men, football and basketball contributed to the highest rates of injuries. The highest injury rates for women were from Army physical training and basketb all. For both men and women, Army physical training was the leading cause o f lumbosacral strains. Conclusions: Sports and Army physical training injuries account for a signi ficant amount of lost duty time and impact military readiness.