Prevention of Musculoskeletal Injuries in Slovenian Armed Forces

February 21, 2023 updated by: Vedran Hadzic, University of Ljubljana
Physical readiness of military personnel is a cornerstone of any army, as soldiers are expected to meet high physical demands on a daily basis, and soldiers must complete one hour of physical conditioning each day. Participation in physical conditioning increases the risk of musculoskeletal injuries, and our 10-year retrospective analysis shows that 5% of soldiers sustain a sports injury during physical conditioning each year, and that ankle and knee injuries have the highest incidence rates of 25% and 20%, respectively. The primary objective of our study is to decrease the rate of ankle and knee injuries by implementing a preventive training program. The study is designed as a prospective randomized controlled trial with two arms (experimental and control).

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Members of Slovenian Armed Forces - SAF (age range 18-51 years) are expected to participate in the study. Prior to recruitment the whole project will be explained to soldiers in a form of briefing during which they have the opportunity to ask and have answers to any questions concerning the nature of subsequent research. Following that explanation each participant will sign a consent form to voluntarily participate. No compensation will be given or promised for participation in a study that was approved by the Ethical board of the Faculty of Sport in Ljubljana (No. 454/2017). At the time of testing all soldiers must be free of acute injuries and should not reported any pain in musculo-skeletal system. Prior to the implementation of the preventive program all participants will underwent the set of functional testing that includes counterMovement jump (CMJ) testing, stork balANce test, pUll-ups, single leg hAmstrings bridge test, and loaded prone pLank test - MANUAL. Following initial testing a 15-week preventive training program will be implemented in experimental group, while control group will be training as usual. Following the intervention final testing will be performed to check for effectiveness of the intervention. After that a follow-up period will start during which injuries will be registered in both groups and later compared between groups (control and experimental) and within (2016-2017 injuries) groups to see if incidence rate of ankle and knee injuries has fallen.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

160

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Slovenia
      • Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1000
        • University in Ljubljana

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 55 years (Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • no major injuries that would require more than 4 weeks to recover upon entry into the study
  • age >18 y
  • finished initial Army training

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Functional training
15 weeks of structured exercise intervention in the form of functional training. We have divided 15 weeks into 5 cycles each cycle lasting 3 weeks. Intervention will be administered twice per week, and each session will last 45 minutes.Each 45 minutes will be further divided into 10 minutes of functional warm-up, 30 minutes of neuromuscular training (strength, agility, balance, coordination) and 5 minutes of cool down. During the 3 week period the intensity of exercise will be increased with different form of same exercise, different number of repetitions and exercise duration.
Other: Exercise
neuromuscular training
No Intervention: Regular army training
Regular military training.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Soldiers With Ankle and Knee Injuries
Time Frame: 1 year
Percentage of soldiers with ankle and knee injuries during the study period.
1 year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Vertical Jump Performance
Time Frame: 15 weeks
jump height in countermovement jump
15 weeks
Pull-ups Performance
Time Frame: 15 weeks
number of overhand pull-ups in one minute
15 weeks
Hamstring Repetitive Strength
Time Frame: 15 weeks
Number of single leg raises on the 60 cm box
15 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Ljubljana

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

January 1, 2017

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 30, 2018

Study Completion (Actual)

September 30, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 8, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 29, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

January 30, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

February 23, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 21, 2023

Last Verified

February 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 630-1/2016-3

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Low Back Pain

Clinical Trials on Exercise

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Finland

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

3
Subscribe