Prevention of Injury in Military Settings Through the Use of Body Awareness.

Physical activity and sport play an important role in the military environment to develop and optimize the operational capability of warfighters. Nevertheless, the prevalence of injuries is high and the identification of risk factors accessible to primary prevention measures is a major challenge for the protection of warfighter health. Military epidemiologic data show that the majority of injuries are acute fall-type injuries following a loss of balance. These data suggest that the quality of postural balance may influence the occurrence of injuries encountered during military physical activities. The high level of stress to which individuals are exposed during military physical activities could contribute to the degradation of postural balance quality. The POSITION project aims to study the cognitive mechanism of postural body awareness as a risk factor for injury and as a target for a primary prevention strategy based on the Resource Optimization of Armed Forces (ROAF) method. ROAF could improve postural control and decrease the intensity of the psychobiological stress response, and thus reduce the incidence rate of fall injuries occurring during military physical activities.