Military medicine
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The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between subjects' oral health characteristics and the incidence of a dental emergency over 1 year. ⋯ This study supports a relationship between demographics, oral health characteristics, and dental emergencies. Age may be related to service members entering the military with untreated or managed dental needs, notably around the age of third molar eruption. Sex differences may be related to willingness or preference to utilize non-emergency dental care visits. The inverse relationship between caries risk and dental emergencies could be due to identification and management of high caries risk patients. This project highlights the need for further study and increasingly discrete measurement of oral health care characteristics and coding for etiologies of dental emergencies.
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Military service members rely on upper body strength and power to accomplish tasks such as carrying heavy weapons and gear, rappelling, combat grappling, and marksmanship. Early identification of the factors that lead to reduced upper body strength and power would enable leadership to predict and mitigate aspects that decrease military operational readiness and increase injury risk. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between grip strength and upper body power in U.S. Infantry Marines. We hypothesized that dominant arm grip strength would show a strong positive correlation with upper body power and that the dominant arm would be more powerful than the non-dominant arm. ⋯ The results of this study suggest that grip strength is not predictive of upper body power and cannot be used as a stand-alone measure of physical readiness in a military unit. These findings do not, however, degrade the potential of both measures to predict and inform health status and physical readiness. Future prospective research should be conducted to determine if either of these measures can be used as indicators of performance and/or injury susceptibility and if limb dominance plays a role in injury incidence within the upper extremity.
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Veterans have a higher national suicide rate than non-veterans (31.6 versus 18.0 per 100,000). Psychotherapy and other treatments are effective at reducing suicidality, yet stigma and barriers to care reduce willingness to seek help. For veterans who do seek help, they are often undertreated leaving them still in need of help. Online mental health tools (OMHTs) provide another option for obtaining help; however, there is limited research regarding the relationship between stigma and barriers to care, OMHT use, and suicidality. We hypothesized that stigma and barriers are related to higher likelihood of OMHT use and OMHT use is related to lower likelihood of suicidality. ⋯ Findings reinforce the need for research aimed at identifying ways to reduce stigma and barriers toward seeking help. Online mental health tools are a viable option for individuals experiencing stigma and barriers and for individuals who previously experienced suicidality.
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In expeditionary environments, the consistent availability of blood for casualty care is imperative yet challenging. Responding to evidence and the specific needs of its expeditionary context, the US Central Command (USCENTCOM) prioritized supplying stored low titer O whole blood (LTOWB) to its units from March, 2023 onward. A strategy was devised to set minimal LTOWB on-hand supply benchmarks, determined by the number of operating beds and point of injury teams. ⋯ As a countermove, the Armed Services Blood Program (ASBP) enhanced LTOWB production at a conversion rate 2:1 from packed red blood cell to LTOWB. Consequently, there was a decline in expired blood products, and fulfillment rates for blood requests are projected to reach 100% consistently. This paper delves into the intricacies of the expeditionary blood supply, the rationale behind the LTOWB transition, the devised allocation strategy, and the subsequent impacts of this change.