How TBI Research Helped Her Walk Again

Twenty-three years ago, a drunk driver hit Bobbi-jo Marlin’s car, sending her to the hospital with a traumatic brain injury (TBI).  

She and her boyfriend were driving through Cle Elum, Washington, but she doesn’t remember the crash, just being driven home from the hospital by her mom and feeling confused that she had to use a wheelchair. Doctors weren't sure if she’d walk again — but they didn’t say it was impossible, either.  

Back then, she never would have imagined the life she’d be living now; and it is thanks, in part, to medical research.  

To try to regain some of the abilities the crash and brain injury had taken from her, she enrolled in a longitudinal research study at UW Medicine called the TBI Model System. The UW TBI Model System is one of 16 such programs across the country that are part of the federally funded study. For decades, the Model System has enrolled people with TBIs to learn how to best help them recover, including physical rehabilitation, pain management and depression treatment.

“We would meet up and they would say, ‘Start by tapping your toe,’ but I couldn't even tap my toe,” Marlin says. “It was so hard, but I just kept trying and nothing would happen. Then when I finally got to one tap, I was like, just keep working at it.”

With time and perseverance, she went from tapping to taking a few steps to walking again.  

“After time had gone by where I was able to walk one block, I was like, ‘Okay, next I'm going to walk two,’” Marlin says. “The trial with UW Medicine got me back on my feet again.”

The study Marlin participated in found that exercise helped many people with TBIs improve their mood and quality of life. 

“The beauty of research is that we actually can keep improving people's recovery,” says Jeanne Hoffman, PhD, director of the UW TBI Model System. “There are all these new technologies and new devices that could come into being, but unless you have research, you don't know if those are going to be effective or not.”  

One thing that makes the UW TBI Model System special is that the researchers follow patients for years — some have been participating in studies since the program began in 1987. That gives researchers a valuable data set.  

But the program’s funding, like that of many research programs, is at risk. If the program doesn’t receive the funding it needs, it will be shut down. That would be a huge loss to the researchers, but especially to the patients, Hoffman says.  

“Without research and without this continued funding, we’re unlikely to be able to continue making the incredible leaps that we’ve been able to make,” Hoffman says.