Home Cervical Traction to Reduce Neck Pain in Fighter Pilots.

Area of Science:

• Aerospace Medicine
• Occupational Health
• Musculoskeletal Disorders

Background:

• Cervical pain is common among fighter pilots, yet effective remediation strategies are lacking.
• F-15C pilots frequently report neck pain during their careers.
• Evidence-based recommendations for managing pilot-induced cervical pain are needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of regular home cervical traction device use in reducing reported cervical pain among F-15C pilots.
• To provide data to inform the development of countermeasures for pilots flying high-performance aircraft.
• To assess the impact of cervical traction on flying-related neck pain.

Main Methods:

• A controlled crossover study involving 21 male F-15C fighter pilots.
• Participants completed 6 weeks of home cervical traction and 6 weeks of a control period.
• Pain levels were logged in the morning, post-flight, and post-traction, with comparisons using paired t-tests.

Main Results:

• During the traction phase, post-flight pain increased but decreased to 1.3 (0.9) after traction, showing a meaningful reduction.
• Cervical traction was effective in alleviating flying-related pain compared to initial levels.
• While daily pain in the traction phase was lower than the control, this difference was not statistically significant.

Conclusions:

• This is the first study to examine home cervical traction for fighter pilot neck pain.
• Home cervical traction demonstrated a small but meaningful improvement in daily pain ratings for pilots.
• Further research is recommended to optimize traction dosage and timing relative to flight duties.