Standardizing Post-Operative Rehabilitation Protocols for the Tri-Service
More than 50 military leaders, clinicians, scientists and subject-matter experts within the physical therapy, orthopaedics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and pain management fields converged for the first time for an all-day consensus meeting to help advance service member care and identify best practices within the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The meeting was hosted by the Musculoskeletal Injury Rehabilitation Research for Operational Readiness (MIRROR) program in the Uniformed Services University’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, The Geneva Foundation and the Broussard Family Trust, to validate and endorse existing or commonly agreed upon postoperative physical therapy (PT) guidelines to be shared through the Military Health System and Defense Health Agency. In addition, the group met to identify research gaps in the area of optimizing postoperative PT guidelines to design, fund, and/or execute future relevant research studies in this field.
Participants came from across the country for the consensus meeting, which resulted in the standardization and approval of 13 protocols for hip, knee, ankle and shoulder injuries.