Back Pain in the U.S. Army Aviation Community

Abstract

Back pain has remained an issue of malcontent among rotary-wing aircraft crewmembers for decades, occurring in the majority of military helicopter pilots with potential deleterious effects on performance, safety, and operational readiness. Participants (467) completed an anonymous survey including questions regarding demographics, airframes, experience, pain history and severity, ergonomics, mitigation strategies, and duty limitations. Overall, 84.6 of participants reported back pain at some time during their flying career with 77.8 reporting back pain in the last calendar year. A stepwise linear regression model was used to explore the relationships between age, flight hours, and years of aviation experience demonstrating age to be the significant variable accounting for the observed variance. Back pain rates were consistent with previous studies.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 16, 2017
Accession Number
AD1036333

Entities

People

  • Amanda M. Kelley
  • Deahndra Grigley
  • Jason Macdonnell
  • John Campbell
  • Joseph J. Pavelites
  • Steven J. Gaydos
  • Timothy H. Cho

Organizations

  • United States Army Aeromedical Research Lab

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Active Duty
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Army Aviation
  • Department Of Defense
  • Families (Human)
  • Flight Crews
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • Medical Personnel
  • Pain
  • Personnel Management
  • Rotary Wing Aircraft
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Statistics
  • Surveys

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.