A PRACTICAL STUDY REGARDING THE THERAPEUTIC ROLE OF NATURE IN THE REHABILITION OF COMBAT-INJURED SERVICEMEMBERS
Abstract
The healing powers of nature have been documented in the past two decades, primarily
in the collaboration of health care professionals and architectural/design firms who
build hospitals. The relationship between accelerated healing and the patient’s surroundings
when nature is consciously made a part of the overall environment of the treatment
facility has been impressive.
Nowhere is this need more pressing than in the treatment of traumatic combat casualties
of returning service members from Afghanistan and Iraq. The irony of the modern age
is that the exponential improvement in medical assistance on the battlefield has resulted
in a much larger than anticipated population of service members who have survived
with amputated limbs and Traumatic Brain Injuries or Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.
Thus the military hospitals have been overwhelmed with the need to provide care for
these “Wounded Warriors.” Additionally, the revelations at Walter Reed in 2007 underscore
the inadequacy of the system to provide a modicum of care to many of these brave young
men and women.
This Masters Project then attempts to bring the two ideas together to synergistically
meld the two concepts of nature as a curative, “eco-therapy,” with the pressing needs
of the military hospitals in the treatment of their seriously wounded.
Working in collaboration with Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA and the San Diego
National Wildlife Complex of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a pilot program was
initiated in 2008 to determine if using eco-therapy would prove beneficial.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/959Citation
Bernitt, Thomas (2009). A PRACTICAL STUDY REGARDING THE THERAPEUTIC ROLE OF NATURE IN THE REHABILITION OF
COMBAT-INJURED SERVICEMEMBERS. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/959.Collections
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