--Few rejoin units in Iraq or Afghanistan, regardless of
treatment November 9, 2009 - Military personnel evacuated out of
Iraq and Afghanistan because of back pain are unlikely to return
to the line of duty regardless of the treatment they receive,
according to research led by a Johns Hopkins pain management
specialist. In a study published in the Nov. 9 Archives of
Internal Medicine, researchers found that just 13 percent of
service members who left their units with back pain as their
primary diagnosis eventually returned to duty in the field.
Women, officers, those deployed in Afghanistan and those with
previous back pain had better outcomes, but only marginally.
Aside from combat injuries sustained during battle, the return-
to-duty rate for spinal pain and other musculoskeletal disorders
is lower than for any other disease or non-combat injury
category except for psychiatric illness, the researchers said.
“The whole mission of the medical corps for the military is to
preserve unit strength, to keep people