Scientometric Analysis of Medical Rehabilitation Approaches for Combatants

Abstract. The exponential growth of scientometric data has created a problem of information overload, making it increasingly difficult for researchers to identify key publications, monitor emerging trends, and synthesize evidence in their field in a timely manner. The number of publications in the medical sciences worldwide increased by 26,5%, from 815950 papers in 2019 to 1031883 papers in 2021. Medical rehabilitation of military personnel and combatants is an important challenge in military medicine. Effective planning of rehabilitation measures requires an understanding the expected distribution of injury patterns and, consequently, the scope and content of rehabilitation interventions appropriate for each type of injury.

The aim of the study was to conduct a scientometric analysis of international publications on the medical rehabilitation of combatants.

A total of 166914 PubMed publication on the medical rehabilitation of combatants published between 1940 and 2026 were analyzed. A large language model, DeepSeek, was used to generate search queries for the PubMed database. A Python-based program was developed to retrieve publication records from PubMed and eliminate duplicate entries. A methodology was designed to classify combatant injuries into generalized injury groups and to categorize medical rehabilitation approaches. Using VOSviewer, ten injury groups based on anatomical location, a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) group, and a group representing general injury terminology were established. Rehabilitation methods associated with each injury group were subsequently determined. Four periods of military conflicts were identified, and the distribution of injury locations together with the corresponding rehabilitation approaches was analyzed for each period. A detailed analysis of medical rehabilitation methods for each injury localization was also performed. These findings provide a foundation for optimizing rehabilitation programs according to injury type and historical context.