Monitoring Physical and Cognitive Performance During Sustained Military Operations

Abstract : Soldiers are exposed to extreme, complex and sustained operations. During operations the limits of human capabilities are easily reached leading to a diminished operational readiness. The status of a soldier is estimated by the commander based on his subjective observations. This commander evaluation can be biased by personal experiences and commanders own physical and mental status. A wrong judgement by a commander in a dangerous and harmful situation may have negative consequences for the soldier. Until recently, no methods were available for the Dutch Army to monitor the physiological and cognitive status of soldiers during (sustained) military operations. In order to develop a tool to predict the operational readiness of soldiers an investigation took place during an Air Mobile Training Course in which physical and cognitive performance was measured. This paper focuses on the cognitive measurements performed during the course. During three of the seven course weeks, which were the physically strenuous weeks, soldiers were tested. Test sessions took place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning as well as on Wednesday and Friday afternoon (five measurements per week). Cognition was measured using three tasks. The N-Back (Zero-Back, One-Back and Two-Back), Tower of Hanoi and VigTrack were used to gain insight in soldiers working memory, logical reasoning, vigilance and tracking. The tasks took about 5 minutes each to complete. The results show that cognitive performance remains relatively stable over two of the three weeks. During the second week two significant drops in cognitive performance were found. Soldiers showed quick recovery, regaining normal cognitive performance within the same day. The results of the three cognitive tasks all revealed the same pattern in their results.