NAVAL HEALTH RESEARCH CENTER’S OPERATIONAL READINESS & HEALTH DIRECTORATE - PUBLISHES IMPACTFUL ANALYSIS
Cross Department Collaboration Identifies Medical Diagnosis for Quality of Life after Blast-Related Injury among US Military Personnel
SAN DIEGO, CA - As part of the Naval Health Research Center’s (NHRC) Operational Readiness & Health Directorate, the Medical Modeling, Simulation, and Mission Support (MMS) and Warfighter Performance Departments work diligently to equip military leaders with the tools and information they need to make informed decisions that promote survivability and improved long-term health outcomes for service members.
In a recent effort, the collaboratory formed by the MMS epidemiology team and Warfighter Performance’s research physical therapist sought to understand how blast-related injury, an emerging public health problem of modern warfare, impacted long-term patient-reported physical and psychological function. Blast injury is frequently associated with multiple, overlapping adverse outcomes. The study team anticipated that multimorbidity, or the co-occurrence of two or more medical conditions, would affect long-term health-related quality of life (QOL). Department of Defense (DoD) health databases were used to identify medical diagnoses among a sample of 1,972 service members in the first-year post-injury and health-related QOL was derived using responses from a web-based assessment from the Wounded Warrior Recovery Project. Cluster analysis, a technique used to classify groups with similar diagnoses, identified five distinct clusters. One of these clusters reflected a clinical triad of musculoskeletal pain, concussion symptoms and mental health morbidity, and was associated with the lowest QOL. These findings underscore the importance of interdisciplinary care and will help to guide medical assessment and treatment of patients with blast injury. The authors recommended that multidisciplinary clinicians track patient-reported outcomes throughout the healing process and during rehabilitation, as they may provide critical information regarding the whole individual and emphasizes priorities important to the patient.
To read the full article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08696-4.
BMC Public Health published Multimorbidity and quality of life after blast-related injury among U.S. military personnel: A cluster analysis of retrospective data.
Authors of the article are: LCDR Andrew Macgregor, a 20 year U.S. Navy Environmental Health Officer and senior NHRC epidemiologist; James Zouris, senior mathematician and statistician at NHRC; Dr. Jessica Watrous, a clinical research psychologist and the Division Head of the Veterans and Active Duty Longitudinal Outcomes Research (VALOR) program at NHRC; Dr. Cameron McCabe, a research psychologist working as a senior scientist on the VALOR program at NHRC; Amber Dougherty, an epidemiologist currently working as a scientific writer and editor for the MMS Department at NHRC; Michael R. Galarneau, MS NREMT, the NHRC Director of Operational Readiness and Health Research; and LCDR John Fraser, a board-certified orthopedic physical therapist and scientist who serves as the Department Head of Warfighter Performance at NHRC.
NHRC’s mission is to optimize the operational readiness and health of our armed forces and families by conducting research, development, testing and evaluation informing Department of Defense policy. NHRC supports military mission readiness with research and development that delivers high-value, high-impact solutions to the health and readiness challenges our military population faces on the battlefield, at sea, on foreign shores and at home. NHRC’s team of distinguished scientists and researchers consists of active duty service members, federal civil service employees and contractors, whose expertise includes physiology, microbiology, psychology, epidemiology, and biomedical engineering.
-NHRC-
| Date Taken: | 08.13.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 08.17.2020 15:44 |
| Story ID: | 376183 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 209 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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