New Home-based Rehab Program for Military, Veterans Helps Treat Common Muscle Injuries

The Uniformed Services University's Consortium for Health and Military Performance has launched a home-based rehabilitation program called "Rehab, Refit, Return to Duty (Rx3)."

Musculoskeletal injuries account for the most lost duty days in the military and are one of the main reasons service members and veterans seek medical care. USU’s CHAMP launched a new home-based program this week – Rehab, Refit, Return to Duty (Rx3) – to help reduce this burden. (Photo credit: Airman 1st Class Christopher Morales, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Public Affairs)
Musculoskeletal injuries account for the most lost duty days in the military and are one of the main reasons
service members and veterans seek medical care. USU’s CHAMP launched a new home-based program this
week – Rehab, Refit, Return to Duty (Rx3) – to help reduce this burden. (Photo credit: Airman 1st Class
Christopher Morales, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Public Affairs)

September 7, 2023 by Sarah Marshall

Musculoskeletal injuries – like low back and knee pain – account for the most lost duty days in the military and are one of the main reasons service members and veterans seek medical care. To help reduce this burden, the Uniformed Services University's (USU) Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) has launched a home-based rehabilitation program, Rehab, Refit, Return to Duty (Rx3).

USU’s CHAMP launched a home-based rehabilitation program this week – Rehab, Refit, Return to Duty (Rx3) – which is now available online and as a mobile app. (Photo credit: Sarah Marshall, USU)
USU’s CHAMP launched a home-based 
rehabilitation program this week – Rehab, Refit, 
Return to Duty (Rx3) – which is now available 
online and as a mobile app. (Photo credit: Sarah 
Marshall, USU)
The program, developed with support from the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Office of Women’s Health Services, is now available online and as a mobile app. It offers a user-friendly guide for both service members and veterans to rehabilitate common musculoskeletal injuries, such as knee and back pain, osteoarthritis, and osteoporosis, as well as postpartum recovery. Rx3 also allows users to navigate through a home-based exercise program to improve strength and mobility, and automatically track their progress, completed workouts, and pain improvement over time. Users can generate reports after their workouts that they can bring to their medical provider and include in their medical records.

“Over the past two years, our team of musculoskeletal experts has worked to make several updates to the immensely popular program,” said Dr. Sarah de la Motte, scientific director of CHAMP's Injury Prevention Research Laboratory. “Having Rx3 available as an app is a game changer when it comes to expediting service members’ and veterans’ access to musculoskeletal rehabilitation tools and supplementing supervised physical therapy.”

Rx3 was previously available as a download and print program that users could print and follow. To continue keeping up with the needs of active duty members and veterans, the program was expanded to include newer content, including additional components that now cover even more musculoskeletal conditions. The free app continues to offer medical providers resources as well, such as easy-to-follow decision guides, helping to rule out serious injuries that may require diagnostic imaging, specialist referral, or expert-guided rehabilitation. 

The app is available exclusively through the Human Performance Resources by CHAMP website, and works on all desktop and mobile devices. Once downloaded, it also functions without an internet connection, making it available in even the most austere environments.

VHA’s Office of Women’s Health women’s musculoskeletal team collaborated with CHAMP to help develop the app. Their team provided subject matter expertise and made sure all content represents the diverse population of veterans.

“We are thrilled to have collaborated with the Consortium for Health and Military Performance to develop the Rehab, Refit, Return to Duty application,” said Dr. Sally Haskell, who was part of the design and is now the acting chief officer of Women’s Health at the Veterans Health Administration. “Our goal in sponsoring this effort was to update the previous version of Rx3 to better represent the diverse population that makes up our Veteran and military communities. The Rx3 program now also includes musculoskeletal conditions that are common among women Veterans, such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, and new images and videos with a range of ages and ethnicities so that all of our users can see themselves.”

To learn more, and to access and download the program, visit HPRC-online.org/Rx3.