“Outstanding program and gift to Soldiers…Thanks for taking care of us.”

Restore and Renew at Walter Reed

The Restore & Renew Wellness Clinic (R&RWC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) focuses on the caregivers who attend to those suffering from the trauma of war. We know that the impact of war is not limited to its geographic borders, to the Soldiers who served, or to their time of service. Caregivers suffer from the trauma of war, brought home by Soldiers. They absorb combat veteran’s traumatic stress in seen and unseen ways.

The R&RWC can help by:

• enhancing morale, reducing the number of sick days taken, increasing job safety, staff retention and job satisfaction;
• helping caregivers maximize their skills and their performance as they care for severely injured Soldiers;
• empowering the military family to better care for each other.

Caregivers working in military hospitals during times of war are at significant risk for developing secondary trauma reactions, such as sleeplessness, anxiety, panic and nightmares. Those WRAMC military caregivers who have memories and/or anticipations of their own battlefield deployment are particularly affected by their work with severely injured Soldiers.

We are addressing the needs of military caregivers at the R&RWC by providing acupuncture and therapeutic bodywork on a walk-in basis, one day per week, for one year. We will offer training in complementary medicine’s approaches to stress reduction in quarterly workshops.

The R&RWC at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) answers the call for a return to a relationship-centered, systems approach to health care. It recognizes the tangible and intangible dynamics of traumatic stress in the patient-caregiver-hospital as an interconnected system. Unwinding stress in any aspect of a system affects all its members. Acupuncture and therapeutic massage are ancient methods that help people find balance and maximize healing. Tending the human circle around seriously ill patients with complementary medicine will help create a peaceful, calm, relaxed alertness in staff that will enhance bio-medicine’s critical interventions.

In 2006, we documented a 40% increase in participants and treatments (to nearly 500 treatments for 300 participants in three 12-hour days). This indicates increasing stress as well as increasing openness to the benefits of complementary medicine for stress reduction in the WRAMC community. Participants communicated significant benefits from our treatments: deeper sleep, less mood-disturbance, fewer aches and pains and increased vitality. This translated into more ease at work and at home.

This clinic grows out of our Caring for the Caregivers annual program at WRAMC - to read more click here to view the report, “Caring for the Caregivers: A Report on a Stress-Reduction Program for the Nursing Staff at WRAMC".