[2020, Mulhouse, Covid-19: a lesson in history, Europe and resilience]

In March 2020, Covid-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, struck the Haut-Rhin region with extreme violence, overwhelming hospitals and requiring the massive opening of new resuscitation beds. The military resuscitation element of the French military health service was deployed for the first time in Mulhouse (68), in eastern France. Alsace-Lorraine, a European crossroads and the birthplace of European institutions, was once again at the heart of history. Perspectives.

[Operation Resilience, care at the crossroads of skills in civil-military cooperation]

Launched on 25 March 2020, the operation Resilience is the armed forces' contribution to the interministerial commitment against the spread of COVID-19. The armed forces are committed in all sectors where they can provide support to the civil authorities, adapting their action to local contexts and as part of a permanent dialogue with the state authorities.

[Military nurse: providing care to soldiers on the frontline]

Armed forces nurses are selected and trained to intervene on the frontline in the minutes following an injury. Their training and their experience enable them to perform all emergency technical procedures as well as specific procedures performed in war situations. They are prepared to work with personnel from all backgrounds and to integrate pluriprofessional teams with whom they have never previously worked.

DEPLOYMENT STATUS: A DIRECT OR INDIRECT EFFECT ON MOTHER-CHILD ATTACHMENT WITHIN A CANADIAN MILITARY CONTEXT?

Research has suggested that military spouses experience increased depressive symptoms and parenting stress during a military member's deployment. A relationship between maternal depressive symptoms, parenting stress, and child attachment security has been found in the general population, as has an indication that social support may provide a buffering effect. While there appears to be an association between the emotional well-being of military spouses and child emotional well-being during deployment, data are limited regarding the association between maternal emotional well-being and child attachment security. The current study explores the association between deployment status and child attachment to the nonmilitary parent (i.e., the mother in this study) in a sample of 68 Canadian military families. Results revealed a significant impact of deployment status on maternal depressive symptoms and on quality of child attachment. The impact of deployment status on attachment was not mediated through the maternal variables, and despite a main effect of social support on the maternal variables, there was no moderating effect. Thus, our results suggest that deployment may affect child attachment independently of maternal well-being.

[The nurse and the reconstruction of military casualties through sport]

Soldiers are confronted with physical and mental injuries which constitute a social trauma. The French army has put in place tools, notably sports courses, to favour resilience and the reintegration of casualties. Nurses and nurse assistants working in physical medicine and rehabilitation and psychiatry, play a key role using their skills to support this scheme which runs outside the hospital setting.

Levels of circulating cortisol and cytokines in members of the Canadian Armed Forces: associations with age, sex, and anthropometry

This study assessed blood levels of cortisol and cytokines (inflammatory and non-inflammatory) in members of the regular Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and examined the associations between sex, age, and adiposity and circulating levels of cortisol as well as pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. As part of a larger ranging project, 331 blood samples were collected from a representative population of the total CAF, which included officers and noncommissioned women and men from the Air Force, Navy, and Army. The blood samples were analyzed for levels of cortisol, C-reactive protein (CRP), adiponectin, and 20 cytokines (which included interleukins, interferons, and tumor necrosis factors). Higher levels of adiponectin were found in women compared with men (median and interquartile range; 16.71 (7.68-25.32) vs 5.81 (3.52-13.19) μg/mL), and higher levels of interleukin (IL)-18 in men compared with women (89.25 (84.03-94.48) vs 75.91 (69.70-82.13) pg/mL). An association between age and levels of stress and inflammatory cytokines was observed, with CRP, IL-18, IL-2 and adiponectin all increasing with increasing age. However, contrary to trends seen in the general population, cortisol levels decreased with increasing age. Levels of CRP and IL-18 increased with an increase in adiposity, while adiponectin levels decreased. Most importantly, at the entire cohort level, a low detection rate for most of the cytokines was observed with 17 out of 22 cytokines having a detection below 10%.

IN CONCLUSION

In this CAF population, although an association between age and inflammatory cytokines was observed, both sex and adiposity had a small impact on levels of cortisol and cytokines.

[Recruitment and training of prehospital emergency care nurses in Paris]

In collaboration with the ambulance driver and the emergency doctor, the prehospital nurse provides care in a universe which is often difficult and sometimes hostile. Whether they are a nurse from the Samu (urgent medical aid service) or from the Paris fire service, how are they recruited and what training do these emergency care professionals receive?

[The former soldiers becoming first aid trainers]

The Order of Malta France is organising, through an innovative partnership with the French Army, the training of first aid instructors aimed at former soldiers injured in combat. One soldier, who received multiple wounds in Lebanon in 2011, describes his training experience.

Before the Obesity Epidemic: The Body Mass Index of Canadians in the First and Second World Wars

Enlistment medical examinations indicate that Canadian soldiers in the Second World War had a lower Body Mass Index (BMI), or weight adjusted for height, than soldiers in the First World War. This evidence, if representative of Canadian society more generally, implies either that the long-run trend to increasing obesity in Canada did not begin until after 1945 or that the generation that came of age between 1914-1939 had particularly challenging socio-economic experiences. The patterns visible for Quebec differ insofar as BMI was initially lower and remained roughly the same from one war to the other.