{"id":6582,"date":"2018-04-13T09:16:46","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T13:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=6582"},"modified":"2018-04-16T13:28:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:28:55","slug":"helping-soldiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2018\/04\/13\/helping-soldiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping Soldiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nancy Henderson, an assistant professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program who has also worked with soldiers as a part-time federal employee for 12 years, compares active duty soldiers to professional athletes who push physical limits every day. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"seven<\/span><\/p>\n

In correlation, there are roughly 300,000 musculoskeletal injuries\u2014which may include ankle sprains, knee injuries and shoulder dislocations\u2014reported by U.S. Army soldiers annually. In 2014 alone, more than 10 million duty days were lost due to injuries.<\/p>\n

As such, Henderson launched a program, \u201cSoldier Athlete Human Performance Optimization,\u201d last year, in which students are assigned to their own company of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers at Fort Stewart or Hunter Army Airfield for six-week time frames each semester. Students present different injury prevention topics and then help soldiers in the company implement the information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis program provides the students with an opportunity to not only learn more about injury prevention, but also to build confidence and public speaking skills,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cAdditionally, the students really enjoy the opportunity to work with high-level tactical athletes and aid in keeping our soldiers healthy and functioning at peak performance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Lt. Col. Kevin Kelly, the 3rd Infantry\u2019s Division surgeon, there has been an estimated 20 percent drop in duty-limiting injuries among the soldiers as a result of the physical therapy students\u2019 participation in spring and fall semesters in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe command team and students are very excited,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cStudents who are chosen to participate receive course credit and soldiers receive a certificate of completion for the project.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Henderson also secured a memorandum of agreement with the commanding general at Ft. Stewart last summer, which allows students to provide various educational opportunities to soldiers and provides faculty and students permission to conduct research with soldiers.\u00a0In addition, a three-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement was signed with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in 2016. The University\u2019s Department of Physical Therapy works with the research institute to refine military screening and assessment tools used to determine readiness and deployability of soldiers. The two institutions expect to jointly publish conference papers and manuscripts as a result of the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the ongoing research endeavors, as well as the Soldier Athlete Human Performance Optimization Program, will continue through 2018, and hopefully for many more years,\u201d noted Henderson. \u201cThere are many more opportunities to work with local tactical athletes and I have plans to involve other departments within the college as we move forward. Overall, we have developed a wonderful little triad between the University, the 3rd Infantry Division and the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span> Melanie Sim\u00f3n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nancy Henderson, an assistant professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program who has also worked with soldiers as a part-time federal employee for 12 years, compares active duty soldiers to professional athletes who push physical limits every day. In correlation, there are roughly 300,000 musculoskeletal injuries\u2014which may include ankle sprains, knee injuries and shoulder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":6583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-6582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-spring-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}