Stroke researcher receives Magnuson Award
Leslie Gonzalez-Rothi, PhD, program director of VA’s Gainesville-based Brain Rehabilitation Research Center (BRRC) and professor of neurology at the University of Florida, received this year’s Magnuson Award. The award is VA’s highest honor for rehabilitation investigators. Gonzalez-Rothi, the first woman to receive the award since it was instituted in 1998, was cited, among other accomplishments, for her "ability to bring people together to work toward a common goal." She and her center’s team of biomedical engineers, neurologists, therapists, and psychologists have been credited with helping to show that patients who have had a stroke or other neurological injury can continue to benefit from treatment for longer periods than were previously thought possible. Gonzalez-Rothi, the first woman to receive the award since it was instituted in 1998, was cited, among other accomplishments, for her "ability to bring people together to work toward a common goal." She and her center’s team of biomedical engineers, neurologists, therapists, and psychologists have been credited with helping to show that patients who have had a stroke or other neurological injury can continue to benefit from treatment for longer periods than were previously thought possible. |
 Leslie Gonzalez-Rothi, PhD |
In an editorial in the May/June 2006 issue of the Journal of Rehabilitation Research Development (JRRD), Gonzalez-Rothi and coauthor Anna M. Barrett, MD, wrote: “In the past, clinicians and the lay public pervasively believed that stroke recovery was very limited. We are now entering an exciting period in poststroke care in which the time span and extent of continued improvement is extending incredibly. ...The articles in this issue demonstrate the powerful synergy of a scientific culture that seeks to dissolve barriers to continued progress for people with chronic poststroke deficits...”
Gonzalez-Rothi, who has served as president of the International Neuropsychological Society and had a number of other leadership roles in the research and therapy community, has championed the integration of phase 1 and 2 exploratory studies into her center’s research. For example, she and her colleagues reported earlier this year in JRRD on the partially successful results of an intensive “phonomotor rehabilitation” program – a treatment adapted from therapy traditionally used for children with dyslexia – designed to improve the speech of a 73-year–old man who had suffered a stroke 11 years earlier.
Gonzalez-Rothi has also influenced basic and applied scientists to work together more closely to identify new approaches to neurorehabilitation. Her center’s research includes studies on physical, speech and cognitive therapies; drug treatments; brain-imaging techniques to study changes associated with treatment; interventions to enhance daily life for patients with brain injuries; and telecommunication technology to evaluate treatments.
The Magnuson Award is named for Paul B. Magnuson, a bone and joint surgeon and chief medical director for VA in the years after World War II. The award is given annually to VA rehabilitation investigators who display entrepreneurship, humanitarianism and dedication to veterans, in the spirit of Magnuson. Known for his pursuit of creative, individualized solutions for meeting the needs of disabled veterans, Magnuson is quoted as saying, "People are no more alike in the shape and functional movements of their bodies and limbs than they are in their faces."
Magnuson Award winners receive a $5,000 cash award and a plaque, along with an additional $50,000 per year for three years to supplement ongoing peer-reviewed research.
