An interesting piece of research has just been published by the US Army Centre for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine in the April issue of Aviation Space, and Environmental Medicine. The research was conducted over 100,000 parachute jumps through the Aberdeen Proving Ground and Madigan Army Centre.

Taking into account all external factors like wind speed, combat loads and time of day (night versus day), the study set out to prove the effectiveness of the use of ankle braces among paratroopers during military parachute training.

The research compared a group wearing the Aircast Jump Brace with a control group.
In univariate analysis, students not wearing the Aircast Jump Brace were twice as likely to experience an ankle sprain, 1.83 times more likely to suffer an ankle fracture and 1.92 times more likely to experience an ankle injury of any type. This result was similarly reflected by Aircast Jump Brace wearers when monitoring lower body injuries exclusive of the ankle.

Even after accounting for known extrinsic injury risk factors, controls were 1.9 times more likely than PAB wearers to experience an ankle sprain, 1.47 times more likely to experience an ankle fracture and 1.75 times more likely to experience an ankle injury of any sort.

The authors of the research concluded that the Aircast Jump Brace* protects against ankle injuries. In particular, this applied to ankle sprains (during military parachute training) whilst not influencing parachute entanglements or lower body exclusive of the ankle.

Parachute Ankle Brace and Extrinsic Injury Risk Factors During Parachuting (Joseph J Knapik, Salima Darakjy, David Swedler, Paul Amoroso and Bruce H Jones)
Aviation Space, and Environmental Medicine x Vol. 79, No 4,April 2008 pp408-415

* The Aircast Jump Brace has a semi rigid shell that provides an excellent fit to enhance stability of the ankle joint. If you like to learn more about Aircast Ankle Braces click here