Nightly News   |  January 09, 2011

How are doctors treating Giffords?

NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman joins Lester Holt speaks with the latest on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ condition, as well as the prospects for her recovery.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> mentioned earlier, doctors here in tucson tsd today they're cautiously optimistic about congresswoman gabrielle giffords . they had a lot to say about how they treated her. for more on that we're joined by nancy snyderman . how does someone survive this kind of injury?

>> in this situation there's a little bit of everything. good luck and trajectory of the bullet. went through a portion of her brain. phenomenal work on the part of the people in the hospital staff to get her into the emergency room and then to the o.r. within an hour. frankly, the fact she's 40. right now in the first 72 hours what they're going to look for, lester, are any changes in her neurologic status. the big concern is they have the blo bleeding under control and infection and make sure the brain isn't swelling. with the bullet over her ear and and tlur her forehead, the doctors took off a piece of skull to allow the brain to swell. they'll watch for changes for damage to the speech area of the brain. right now in this first 72 hours it's about stabilizing her and monitoring her hour by hour and day by day and then you can talk about the long term.