Prevention of Bone Stress Fractures in Military Women: A Systematic Review

Stress fractures occur after bone placed under intermittent loading on the verge of defeat, before microscopic cracks find the opportunity to be repaired. In this study, stress fractures, causes and risk factors that may be affecting, are investigated. This study is a systematic review of the database of scientific papers extracted from Pubmed, Science Direct Ovid, and ProQuest with timeframe of 1970-2012 via keywords of stress fractures, military women, and athletes. Environmental factors (physical exercise programs, shoes, and exercise level) and intrinsic factors (demographic, biomechanical, hormonal and nutritional) are of the most important factors of stress fractures. Gradual increase in physical exercises and military training programs interrupting after 2 to 3 weeks of training, the use of appropriate military footwear, the insoles shock absorber, the use of orthotics in the shoe, diet adherence and treatment of irregular menstrual periods are among the items that this study proposed to prevent damage. Stress fracture is one of the major skeletal disorders among military forces and athletes and its outbreak among military women is about twice that of the military men.