Photo By Tech. Sgt. Michael Ellis | Airman Basic Christopher Robbins receives gait video and observational analysis at the...... read more read more
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas -- There's a small clinic with a not-so-average mission tucked away in an unassuming building. It impacts the lives of all Air Force Basic Military Training and many technical school trainees on Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
With just a handful of staff members, the 59th Medical Wing's Versatile Injury Prevention and Embedded Reconditioning, or VIPER, Clinic is on pace to treat 66,000 patients this year alone. It's the only sports medicine clinic in the Air Education and Training Command and the brainchild of Capt. Nate Nye, a fellowship-trained primary care sports medicine physician with the 559th Trainee Health Squadron.
Nye sought to establish a specialized unit devoted to treating and preventing the running and performance-related injuries that are so common in basic and technical training.
"Musculoskeletal injuries are the number one health problem across all military services," he said, explaining that the injuries cause 25 million days of limited duty annually.
"In BMT alone, the cost of musculoskeletal injuries amounts to $34.8 million per year, most due to replacing lost personnel. Smaller but more physically demanding training units such as the 342nd Training Squadron (battlefield Airmen) incur over $25 million annually due to injuries," Nye said.
Operational since November 2014, the VIPER Clinic is adapted from the athletic training room/team physician model in college and professional sports, which has been very successful in getting high-performance athletes back on the court or field as rapidly and safely as possible. Despite its infancy, the clinic is already making an impact.
Among its accomplishments, the clinic revamped the basic training fitness program and is working to improve the entry-level fitness of new recruits, a move projected to save up to $10 million annually, according to Nye.
About 90 percent of the injuries seen in the VIPER Clinic are of the lower extremities. These injuries often result in large part from poor fitness levels and previously sedentary lifestyles of incoming trainees, said Capt. Andrew McCampbell, VIPER physician assistant and a former NCAA Division I track coach.
Every day, the clinic writes personalized exercise prescriptions for injured trainees. The VIPER team also performs video and observational analysis to assess patients' running form and give them gait training.
"The video recording allows patients to see themselves run and, through biofeedback, helps them understand corrective cues and make the necessary changes. By correcting their movement patterns, the VIPER staff is able to eliminate many major causes of these lower extremity injuries," McCampbell explained.
In the past, trainees in medical-hold status would become less fit from inactivity during the healing and recovery process. Now, personal care at the VIPER Clinic empowers trainees to maintain their fitness with low-impact cross-training and core strengthening, and has sped the average recovery time.
For many trainees, one important aspect of recovery is a progressive walk-to-run program. The patients are guided as they steadily increase their running distances over two to four weeks until they fully recover.
"The VIPER Clinic has contributed to a decrease in the average time spent on medical hold by each trainee from 32 days to approximately 15 days, lowering the monthly census," McCampbell said.
To help prepare new recruits for the physical requirements of basic military training, the clinic is also producing a 16-week fitness program video for the Air Force Recruiting Service. Called "Couch to BMT" and slated for release early next year, the video will feature phased workout plans and well-honed fitness instruction intended to guide and motivate previously sedentary recruits as they prepare themselves before entering the Air Force.
"Better fitness in our incoming recruits and better fitness training during BMT will directly translate into a healthier and more resilient Air Force in the long-term, and that's everyone's goal," Nye said.
| Date Taken: | 08.03.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 05.03.2016 17:06 |
| Story ID: | 197204 |
| Location: | SAN ANTONIO, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 40 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, VIPER Clinic: Improving lives of current and future USAF recruits, by TSgt Michael Ellis, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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