Currently, little is known about the length of time required to rehabilitate patients fromstress fractures and their return to preinjury\r\nlevel of physical activity. Previous studies have looked at the return to sport in athletes, in a general population, where rehabilitation\r\nis not as controlled as within a captive military population. In this study, a longitudinal prospective epidemiological database was\r\nassessed to determine the incidence of stress fractures and the time taken to rehabilitate recruits to preinjury stage of training.\r\nFindings demonstrated a background prevalence of 5% stress fractures in RoyalMarine training; femoral and tibial stress fractures\r\ntake 21.1 weeks to return to training withmetatarsal stress fractures being the most common injury taking 12.2 weeks. Rehabilitation\r\nfrom stress fractures accounts for 814 weeks of recruit rehabilitation time per annum. Stress fracture incidence is still common in\r\nmilitary training; despite this stress fracture recovery times remain constant and represent a significant interruption in training. It\r\ntakes on average 5 weeks after exercise specific training has restarted to reenter training at a preinjury level, regardless of which bone\r\nhas a stress fracture. Further research into their prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation is required to help reduce these burdens.
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