Healing after a brain injury is rarely linear and it’s never only physical. Cognitive changes and emotional adjustment often affect a patient and their families long after the visible injuries begin to heal. At Madonna, our care is delivered with the whole person in mind.
For Jade Mazzara, this holistic approach made all the difference.
Eighteen-year-old Jade sustained a serious brain injury in a car accident, and her family was suddenly navigating a world defined by trauma. Her mother, Tessa, remembers how quickly everything unfolded.
“We got the alert on my phone that she had been in an accident, and it pinned that location,” she said. “I drove immediately to the site, and the car was smashed and she was being loaded into an ambulance.”
Jade was taken to North Kansas City Hospital. After three weeks in the intensive care unit, she started to wake up and follow commands. She then transitioned to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ specialized brain injury program, where she began making rapid progress.
Recovery of the Mind
Madonna’s neuropsychology team helped lay the groundwork for Jade’s healing, supporting her through emotional regulation, cognitive changes and the psychological impact of trauma.
“Our neuropsychological services make Madonna unique in that we’re seeing the whole picture,” Jess Lammers, MA, PLMHP, said. “Given some of the physical and cognitive changes that our patients experience after their injuries, it’s usually not until this stage of the recovery process that psychological care is even considered.”
Traumatic brain injuries don’t affect patients alone. Families often arrive in a state of heightened stress, still operating in crisis mode.
“A lot of the time, families are coming out of fight-or-flight,” Jess says. “When they transition to this level of care, there’s more time to take a deep breath, adjust, and feel emotions that may have been building up.”
For Jade, addressing those challenges early helped establish emotional stability and resilience, forming a foundation that supported everything that followed.
Recovery of the Body
As her emotional health stabilized, Jade’s physical recovery gained momentum. Early challenges with movement and memory were significant.
“When she came here, she couldn’t talk,” Tessa said. “She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t sit up on her own.”
Led by a brain injury physician, Jade’s multidisciplinary team worked collaboratively to address cognition, balance and vision, ensuring that each therapy reinforced the others.
“The first day I met Jade, we walked six feet,” Karen King, PT, DPT, CBIS, a Madonna physical therapist, said. “She required a lot of assistance to move her legs and stabilize her balance. We did bodyweight support treadmill training to get that mass repetition, but it also let us take our hands off and see exactly what she could do. We were able to increase speed, challenge her with sidestepping and backward walking and stepping over hurdles, really engaging those higher-level tasks.”
Therapists also creatively combined memory and physical challenges, which strengthened both her cognitive skills and her mobility simultaneously.
“Memory was such a big limitation that we incorporated it into physical mobility with her telling jokes and trying to remember them,” King said. “That could then help her improve her speech therapy and occupational therapy as well.”
Jade’s progress wasn’t just measured in steps or words. It was seen in confidence, independence and coordination.
Recovery of the Spirit
At Madonna, recovery doesn’t end with the physical milestones. It extends to the spirit and for Jade, that spark returned through jokes and laughter.
“At the beginning, she didn’t think she could talk at all,” Tessa said. “Once we started giving her a reason to talk, she’s gotten louder and louder.”
As Jade found her voice, her playful personality began to emerge in ways that warmed everyone around her.
“She was going around telling jokes to other people and spreading that joy,” King said. “Seeing her personality come out was the most heartwarming part.”
Even Jade noticed the change herself.
“What do you call a pig that knows karate?” she asked with a grin. “A pork chop.”
Jade’s journey shows that with care that nurtures the mind, body and spirit, healing becomes more than recovery. It becomes a return to who someone truly is.