Understanding and managing the relationship between soldier burden, mobility and susceptibility to enemy fire in the Canadian Armed Forces

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The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) play an essential role to Canadians, contributing to the security andco-operation of Canada both domestically and internationally. Dismounted soldiers carry heavy loads andequipment on their body while completing work-related tasks with heavy physical demands. Given theseoccupational demands, it is not surprising that soldiers experience a high proportion of musculoskeletal injuriesat work. A trade-off exists between carrying heavy loads that are necessary for operational effectiveness andthe associated deficits in mobility, which can reduce performance and potentially lead to an increased exposureto enemy fire. In addition, there are other factors that can contribute to reductions in mobility in soldiers. Theaim of this work is to determine how to manage and understand the relationships between heavy carried loads,musculoskeletal injury risk and mobility in soldiers during highly physically demanding tasks. We aim toexplore these issues through a variety of approaches, including observing soldiers during training exercises thatare similar to exposures experienced while deployed. Based on these experiences, we will develop systematictesting procedures to isolate the movements that make up the work-related tasks and test the effect of load in alaboratory environment. Finally, we will use statistical procedures and machine learning approaches in order topredict the mobility of soldiers in novel loading scenarios that were not previously tested. The goal of thiswork is to contribute to an understanding of how carrying heavy loads can increase injury risk and reduceperformance in soldiers. Strong government-industry partnerships with Defence Research DevelopmentCanada (DRDC) and Canadian firm Mawashi Science and Technology will ensure project success as well asthe dual-use of the research findings.