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Week in the Life of a Brain Injury Patient
at Shepherd Center
John and Mary Welch don't know what caused their daughter's car to cross the median of a four-lane Alabama highway and collide with an oncoming truck. But because she had turned on her digital audio recorder – they think she was working on a journalism class assignment – before the crash, they have an audio recording of the aftermath of the accident in which other motorists, as well as emergency personnel, worked to free the 21-year-old Auburn University student from her car.
Molly Welch, 21, of Alpharetta, Georgia, was returning to Auburn after spending
a weekend at home with her family in early February 2008. Once rescue workers
removed Molly from her vehicle, she was taken to East Alabama Medical Center
in Opelika, Ala., for trauma care. Doctors determined Molly had sustained a severe
brain injury, as well as other injuries. She remained in the ICU for three weeks
in a minimally conscious state.
On Feb. 28, Molly was transferred to Shepherd Center's ICU. Then she spent several weeks as a minimally conscious patient in Shepherd's Pre-Rehabilitation and Education Program (PREP). After that period of therapy and family training, Molly was sent home for a month until she began to emerge from this low level of cognitive activity. She returned for acute rehabilitation in Shepherd's Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Unit, then continued her therapy as an outpatient at Shepherd Pathways for several weeks.
While at Shepherd, ABI patients undergo an intense routine of daily therapy, including occupational, physical and recreational therapy. They also receive counseling and participate in classes that teach patients and family members about their injury and how to manage their day-to-day care after leaving the hospital.
While individual patients' functional goals vary, Shepherd Center's ultimate goal is to return patients to their communities to live as independently as possible. This photo essay chronicles a week near the end of Molly's inpatient rehab – an important point in her journey toward restoring her hope for the future.
– Photos by Gary Meek, Text by Jane M. Sanders
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