Arctic Military Conference on Cold Weather Medicine
In October 2022, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) convened a review of progress in military biomedical research for cold weather operations. This collection represents peer-reviewed manuscripts from the key presentations. These highlight what research has done for the soldier lately and they identify future research directions. The importance of realistic training was an overarching theme of the symposium. Many reported studies took advantage of cold weather training exercises to monitor soldiers' health and performance; these are valuable data, using winter exercises as a platform to gain further knowledge regarding human performance in the cold and represent an excellent extension of controlled laboratory-based studies. Topics also included prevention of Cold Weather Injuries (CWI); effects of cold weather stressors on brain and cognitive function; field treatment of freezing cold injuries (FCI); and new consideration to injury and trauma care in the cold. Future work programmes re-emphasize development of effective cold weather training for medical and military personnel and establishment of consensus diagnostic criteria and treatments for FCI and non-FCI. CWI prevention should take advantage of biomathematical models that predict risk of CWI and provide guidance regarding optimal clothing and equipment and move from group averages to personalized predictions. The publication of selected presentations from the symposium in this special issue increases attention to military cold weather research.
Edited by
Dr. Karl E. Friedl(US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine)
Dr. Arne Johan Norheim(The Arctic University of Norway)
