Rehab center seeking $5 million grant

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas (KXAN) - Core Health Care is seeking a $5 million grant to develop encouraging new treatments.

Almost 1.5 million Americans suffer severe brain trauma every year, and nearly 10 percent of those victims will remain with long-term disabilities.

Core treats short- and long-term patients, patients like Debbie Dorsett, who since her car accident in 2006, suffers chronic anxiety and memory loss. She cannot remember her husband or children.

"You take life for granted when something like this happens," said Dorsett. "If it wasn't for Core and therapy, I probably wouldn't be able to stand and talk with you know. That's how bad I was."

Core hopes the federal stimulus grant will help develop new MRI imaging, eight times more powerful than currently available, that would track the healing paths of neural brain connectors. That, and stem cell research that could literally regenerate injured portions of the brain, offers new hope for one of the most intractable injuries that humans can suffer.

"I think the entire field of neural science and rehab are going to have to move their line to a new place where, if we knew the right kind of interventions, we might facilitate healing much more quickly than we ever believed possible," said Core president Jim Misko.

Core is partnered with Brigham Young University and the University of Texas in its grant request, and hopes to get an answer within three to six months. Core is a 52-bed rehab center located in Dripping Springs.