--- title: Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery | TIME description: What kind of therapy has allowed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to make make such good progress in four months? TIME’s Alice Park visits the Kessler Institute to find out canonical: https://time.com/video/ePpGcHeU/ og:title: Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery og:description: What kind of therapy has allowed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to make make such good progress in four months? TIME’s Alice Park visits the Kessler Institute to find out og:url: https://time.com/video/ePpGcHeU/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ePpGcHeU/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery twitter:description: What kind of therapy has allowed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to make make such good progress in four months? TIME’s Alice Park visits the Kessler Institute to find out twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ePpGcHeU/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery [Watch (HLS stream): Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ePpGcHeU.m3u8) (4:02)  _Published 2011-04-29. What kind of therapy has allowed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to make make such good progress in four months? TIME’s Alice Park visits the Kessler Institute to find out_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:13 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Gabby Giffords is ‘Optimistic’ About Meaningful Gun Control Change](/video/uV6UUEFl/) ### Gabby Giffords is ‘Optimistic’ About Meaningful Gun Control Change [Warship USS Gabrielle Giffords Is Put Into Active Service After Ceremony in Texas](/video/A1G2mhns/) ### Warship USS Gabrielle Giffords Is Put Into Active Service After Ceremony in Texas [Watch Gabrielle Giffords Powerful Message at the Democratic Convention](/video/c4CKr1v8/) ### Watch Gabrielle Giffords Powerful Message at the Democratic Convention --- ## Transcript Perhaps no one was more disappointed by the news that the shuttle Endeavor's launch was scrubbed on Friday than Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords. It's been four months since Giffords suffered a devastating gunshot wound to the head, and during those months in which she began intensive rehabilitation, one of her main goals was to attend the launch of the Endeavor which her husband Mark Kelly is piloting. She made that trip, and to get a better idea of what it took to get her there, we visit the Kesler Rehabilitation Center in West Orange, New Jersey, to understand how patients recover from traumatic brain injury. What we tell people in general about recovery is that they should be better than they are when they come in but they probably won't get back to where they were before the injury. Typically someone who comes in with a traumatic brain injury will go through three types of therapies here. Cognitive therapy focuses on speech, concentration, and memory. Now we're on a roll. Occupational therapy helps patients with practical skills like dressing, brushing their teeth, and cooking. While physical therapy builds on motor skills such as standing, and walking all the way to more refined activities, like lifting and throwing. You start with whatever the patient can handle, basically. So you know if you have a patient who's low level, meaning they're in a vegetative, or minimally conscience state. Your primary focus, initially, is on the physical and the occupational therapy. The patient's condition when he arrives will also determine how long he spends in rehab. Today, physical therapist, Elizabeth Capudo, is going through a routine physical session with Heather Scafone. Heather arrived three weeks ago from the intensive care ward. While training for a triathlon she was thrown off her bike, and on to her head, leaving her with a broken collarbone and weakness on her left side. Ready? 1, 2, 3 up. Stands. Since she's arrived she's been doing about three hours a day of physical therapy. When she first came here, we actually tried to stand her on her first day. It took two of us to stand her. So, as you can see she's made amazing progress, and it's really a tribute to her. She has such a hard work ethic. If you need to take a rest, just tell me. Okay? Because of her injury, Heather still gets dizzy when she moves, and her therapy has been focused on improving her balance by standing and walking. [ INAUDIBLE ] Good job. But today she's making a breakthrough, taking on stairs for the first time. Okay. Okay hold on to the railing. They push me really hard. [ LAUGH ] But, they're encouraging and, and actually not been as bad as you would think. Nice job. Excellent. Thank you. You've been, you've progress your left leg by yourself [ CROSSTALK ] I didn't even really need to help you with that though. That was great. Down the hall, we get an idea of what Heather and Congresswoman Giffords can look forward to once they complete their formal rehabilitiation. The therapy continues with outpatient programs which can go on for months or even years after a brain injury. Brian Ramsey had to relearn how to speak and do something he loves, cook. Oh geez. After a heart attack, Brian's brain was left without oxygen for several minutes, enough to damage his ability to talk and to do many things on his own. After a few months of rehabilitation, he is now working on higher level occupational skills like playing on the Wii and baking cookies. That's the future the Giffords, her family and her doctors are hoping for. There you go. And making the trip to Florida is the first step toward turning that hope into reality. [ NOISE ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Gabrielle Giffords’ Brain Injury: The Steps to Recovery","description":"What kind of therapy has allowed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to make make such good progress in four months? 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