Non-Battle Injuries presenting to the Force Medical Rehabilitation Team on Operation GRITROCK.

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.