Summer 2015 Edition

In January 2011, after being shot in the head at point blank range outside a grocery store in Tucson, United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords was transferred from the University of Arizona Medical Center to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center’s Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit. Rep. Giffords’ physician team upgraded her condition from serious to good four days after her admission, and she was transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann, where she worked to regain her independence as an inpatient and later, as an outpatient.

Once physiatrists are certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (ABPMR), they are automatically enrolled in the board’s Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Program. To maintain their certification, they must report their continuing medical education, participate in self-assessment activities, complete practice improvement projects and pass the MOC examination every 10 years.

Amobi Okoye is no stranger to physical conditioning and hard work. In 2007, after graduating from the University of Louisville with a degree in psychology, he was drafted by the Houston Texans in the first round of the year’s National Football League draft – the youngest player ever to hold that distinction. At his first start with the Texans, Okoye became the youngest player to appear in an NFL game since 1967. Over the next five years, he played successfully with the Texans, the Chicago Bears and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, signing on for a second stint with the Bears in 2012.

The smells of cooking and baking filled the Young home in Horatio, Arkansas, the day before Thanksgiving 2012. The Young’s daughter, Mandy Maddox, and her two daughters Macy and Madison had driven the 60 miles from their home in Mena to spend the holiday with family. Her husband, John Maddox, had plans to drive down the following morning.

“Uber and Lyft have been touted as the taxis of the future,” wrote Michael Zoorob last summer in an editorial to the Houston Chronicle.  Unfortunately, the promises from Uber and other transportation network companies (TNCs) of ‘seamless connection’ and ‘access’ do not extend to many people with disabilities.”  At the time he wrote his op-ed piece, Zoorob was an intern working at the non-profit Southwest ADA Center, a program of Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston.

As coordinator of the Intrathecal Baclofen Pump Program at TIRR Memorial Hermann, Thompson is part of a tightly integrated team of clinicians who help patients manage spasticity through a surgically implanted mechanical pump that delivers medication directly into the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Patients undergo a trial or screening test dose of the medication to assess their response to the therapy; those with a favorable response are eligible for implantation of the pump.

Fifteen physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists affiliated with the TIRR Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network have been certified in the subspecialty of brain injury medicine by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). Only 271 physiatrists in the country passed the daylong test, administered last October. The subspecialty certification in brain injury medicine (BIM) was cosponsored by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (ABPMR), and approved by the ABMS in 2011.

In the NeuroMyo Engineering for Rehabilitation Laboratory at the TIRR Memorial Hermann Research Center, investigators led by Ping Zhou, PhD, are studying the use of noninvasive high-density surface electromyography (EMG) to enhance their understanding of muscle weakness following stroke. The researchers expect their findings to contribute to the development of rehabilitation strategies – including therapies and devices – that will help restore normal muscle function in stroke patients.

Earlier this spring, Monica Garza celebrated the first anniversary of her survival of an attack by two unrestrained pit bulls. Her story, much publicized in the Houston news media, began on a cold, wet day in March 2014 on the Southbelt Hike and Bike Trail. “I’ve been running that trail for 10 years and usually it’s full of people,” says Garza, an athletic 5-foot-8-inch 35-year-old. “But there was no one on the trail that morning. When I saw the dogs ahead of me, I slowed my run to a walk and decided to go back to the street. As they charged me, I called 911 on my cell phone and told them I was about to be attacked."

A gift from the Staman Ogilvie Fund for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery, Rehabilitation and Research, made through the Memorial Hermann Foundation, has funded the creation of the Center for Wearable Exoskeletons at TIRR Memorial Hermann. The new laboratory is part of the NeuroRecovery Research Center, one of five research organizations that make up the TIRR Memorial Hermann Research Center. The gift was made to the department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at McGovern Medical School.

George Powers, JD, has joined the Southwest ADA Center, a program of Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) at TIRR Memorial Hermann, as a legal specialist. Powers received his bachelor’s in speech communications from Trinity University in San Antonio. He went on to earn a Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center, where he also worked in the Immigration Clinic. In 2014, he was appointed to the City of Houston Transportation Accessibility Task Force to provide policy guidance.

David Arciniegas, MD, senior scientist and medical director for brain injury research, received the 2015 Mitch Rosenthal Award for Scientific and Clinical Achievement in Brain Injury Rehabilitation, presented at the 39th Annual Williamsburg Brain Injury Rehabilitation Conference held in Williamsburg, Va., in April.

This July we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which is built on the principles of equal opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency. The law was created to remove barriers that isolate people with disabilities, with specific requirements in the areas of building access, transportation and telecommunications. It also requires reasonable accommodation in employment settings to help ensure that everyone can contribute in the workplace.