Giffords' Recovery Remarkable, But Not Over, Says Jefferson Neuroscientist

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The emotional appearance of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on the House floor during the vote on the debt ceiling bill came as a stunning surprise to many of us.  But how about a specialist in brain injuries?

The short answer is it was a surprise to Jefferson University Hospital Neurologist Mijail Serruya, but even so, he noticed that she still showed some sign of being shot in the head less than seven months ago.

"We know that she was not completely normal.  The bullet entered the left side of her head and that affects the right half of the body and sure enough she didn't wave with her right hand, she waved with her left, from the side the part of her brain that wasn't touched by the bullet."

Dr. Serruya says aggressive treatment and a good dose of luck can get some of the credit for Giffords' progress but so can research going back decades that honed physicians' abilities to deal with traumatic brain injury.  As to her future, he can only speculate that this will be an ongoing struggle.

Reported by John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio 1060